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THE MEN OF '05 



SOME PEN PICTURES, AND A FEW OTHER THINGS. CONCERNING 

ONE HUNDRED OR MORE GENTLEMEN CONNECTED 

WITH THE FIRST ALL-REPUBLICAN 

GOVERN^IENT OF MICHIGAN 



HARRY M. NIMMO 



Legislative correspondent for The Detroit Tribune in the sessions of 1(503 and 1905 




Coi'VRiGHT, 1905, BY Harry M. Ximmo 
-Detroit, Mich. 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 3 !906 

Ceoyright Entry 
- / 0. 'fo^ 
'C4ASS A X)&., No 

COPY B. 




•w „ «4 




GOV. FRED M. WARNER 



INDEX. 



Page 



Adams, R. N 1 1 

Alward, D. E 12 

Ashley, N 13 

Atwood, T. W 14 

Baillie, T. G 15 

Baird, J 16 

Beal, J. E 17 

Benton, C. R 18 

Bird, A. C 19 

Bird, J. E 20 

Bland, J. E 21 

Bradley, J. B 22 

Brockway, J. E 23 

Brown, W. E 24 

Bunting, A. F 26 

Bvrns, C. J 27 

Canfield, I. S 28 

Chapman, C. H 29 

Chase, H. E 30 

Chilson, E. V 31 

Cook, A. B 32 

Cropsev, T- R 33 

Curtis, W. L 34 

Decker, F. L 35 

Dickinson, L. D 36 

Diekema, G. J 37 

Dohertv, A. T 3^ 

Double; T. E 39 

Duncan, G. W 4° 

Earle, H. S 41 

Eichhorn, P 42 

Ellis, G. E 43 

Ely, T. A 44 

Farr, A. W 45 

Fvfe, A 46 

Galbraith, W.J 47 

Gardner, E. N 48 

Glasgow, C. L : 4') 

Gordon, J. R 5° 

Greusel, J 52 

Hanlon, M 53 

Harris, M 54 

Havden, J. G 55 

Heald, H. T 56 

Heine, A. 5 7 

Herkimer, H. H 5^ 

Higgins, T. T 59 

Holmes, J- W 60 

Hudson, G. M 61 

Ivory, W. E 62 

Jerome, J- D 63 

Kane, H.J 64 



Page 

Kelley, P. H ' ^c 

Kellev, L. L A 

Kelley, S.H 67 

Knignt, J. B : : ; ; ; ;■;;;; \ ^^ 

Knight, W. A ■ 60 

LiUie, C. C '..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'..'.'. 70 

Loomis, A. P , j 

Lord, G ' 

Lovell, N. V L 

Maitland, A ..................'. 74 

Manzelniann, C yr 

Martindale, F. C ,5 

Master, S. F 'g 

Mills, W. N ,Q 

Ming, F. R ;.:::;::::::::::':■:■;■; so 

Moffatt, O. C ; ; 81 

Monroe, J. S ' ' ' 82 

Moore, G. W 8^ 

Moore, J. B 84 

Moriarty, M. H 85 

Morrice, J. L 86 

McCarthy, J.J 8-7 

McKay, "^W. . . .' 88 

McLeod, M. J So 

Nank, W. F 00 

Neal, F. S '..'..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 91 

Nottingham, D. M 02 

Oviatt, D. B g. 

Peek, A. J ;;:;;::;:;:;:';':':::: li 

Pettit, A. D 55 

Pierce, C. S q6 

Prosser, H. H gj 

Read, J. H g8 

Rumer, J. F g^ 

Russell, H 100 

vSayre, I. T loi 

Scidmore, A. W 102 

Scott, G. G 104 

Seeley, T. D 105 

Sheldon, S. A iot> 

Shook, A. N 107 

Shumway, F. W 108 

Simpson, N. F 109 

Smith, C 110 

Snell, L. W '..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. m 

Stannard, W. L 112 

Stockdale, D uj 

Stone, A. G 114 

Traver, S. C 115 

Turner, J. E 116 

Van Akin, S 117 

Van Keuren, C 118 

Ward, C. E iig 

Warner, F. M 120 

Waters, A.J 121 

Watt, T- c :;;;;;;; 122 

Whelan, N. T 12? 

Whitbeck, W. H '..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 124 

Woodman, J 121; 

Adams, F. J ' 126 

Illustrations bj- Nash 2s, qi, 77, 105 



©1|^ a^p0rt^r*0 Point of Vum 



^/T was with fear and trembling that the scribe of this vol- 
mI ume undertook its pubHcation. A pohtical reporter 
^iJ for a completely independent journal is not usually 
the auspicious person to compile a souvenir for any po- 
litical party. Indeed, had it not been for the suggestion of 
Mr. George E. Miller, until recently editor-in-chief of The De- 
troit Tribune, and his sympathetic encouragement, such a pub- 
lication would not have been conceived nor hazarded. The 
kindly reception of a few "First Impressions of Michigan's 
Lawmakers" published in The Tribune during the sessions of 
1903 and 1905 first inspired the idea that our readers might 
appreciate them enough to assist in their compilation. A cas- 
ual canvass among some of the more prominent men in the 
capitol assured me that the idea was warranted. 

No attempt has been made to bring together a complete rec- 
ord of all the members of both houses, or of all departments 
of the state government. It was originally intended to com- 
pose only one hundred pen pictures of republican statesmen and 
officers in the public eye. The number has exceeded that 
limit — there are 112 in all — and it is only the late date at which 
the work was undertaken that prevented the sketching of all 
men holding important places in this year of grace. 

Here a word may be said of the relation of the reporter to 
the man of affairs and the reading public. It is a regrettable 
fact that there is a general impression regarding the personalitv 
and work of the reporter most uncomplimentary to the pro- 
fession of journalism. And it all arises from this— that a higher 
degree of excellence is demanded from the men operating the 
public press than is demanded from the men of any other voca- 
tion. The banker, the doctor, the statesman, the'lawyer, even 
the preacher, are allowed the human privilege of making mis- 
takes in the daily practice of their respective profession's with 
wide moral impunity. The very nature of their work protects 
them from much of the censure that follows like the Furies in 
the wake of a "break" in a big daily newspaper. Let but the 
pencil of the overwrought reporter or writer slip on the initials 
of one hitherto unknown individual, and that journal has in- 



curred the ill will of an irate citizen who may or may not be 
molHfied. The reporter who is paid to gather the news as fast 
as it is ripe, and perhaps to help it ripen, hurries a dispatch to 
his paper, essentially correct, but unintentionally twisted in one 
minor detail. The weeping victim assails him with charges 
ranging from unfairness to lying, partisanship and even corrup- 
tion. In nine cases in every ten that same victim was offered 
the opportunity in abundant time of corroborating or correct- 
ing or amending the dispatch before it was filed, and probably 
replied with an injured air, "I have nothing to say." A re- 
porter can't hit the bull's eye with his hands tied. 

Neither is the average newspaper man a liar. Nothing he 
loves more than to get all the facts; not the theories, but the 
facts. That's what the public want; what he's hired to get. 
He has no ax to grind. He is meddlesome and wants to know. 
When he knows he is satisfied; not until then. If a reporter 
for an independent journal runs across a fact that is apt to prove 
detrimental to the republican party, or the democratic party, 
or any other party, he gloats with the same joy that would 
course through him if it were otherwise. As the railroad attor- 
ney will spend days and nights to win his client's case, as the 
republican politician will spend days and nights to secure his 
party's victory, the loyal reporter will spend days and nights to 
support his paper and its policy. To say that the fall of one re- 
porter is the corruption of the whole press is to say that one 
grafter makes a whole government criminal. To ask a re- 
porter to allow friendship to come between him and his paper 
is corruption. To sa}^ that a reporter or a journal shall make 
no mistakes is to remove the making and editing of newspapers 
from the sphere of humanity to elysium and look to the angels 
for circulation. Facts! Facts! Let us have the facts! 

More than once during the session just closed have prominent 
republican leaders warned the all republican government 
against themselves and offered secret thanks for the existence 
of a vigorous independent press. In addressing the represent- 
atives both Congressman Townsend and Thomas E. Bark- 
worth, formerly chairman of the democratic state central com- 
mittee, bluntly declared that it was not well to have no oppo- 
sition on the floor. It seems there is to be but little opposition 
to republican policies and enterprises on the floor of the house 
for the next few years at least. The republican party will be 
in the balance. Party government ceases to be party govern- 
ment when it becomes an unchallenged monopoly. The wel- 
fare of the state as well as the welfare of the party itself de- 
mands criticism — bold, unhesitating, fair criticism. Top-heavi- 
ness and internal dissension are as potent enemies as external 
hostility and organized warfare. 



The government of Michigan in 1905 ranks quite as high as 
those that have gone before with some of the old inherent weak- 
nesses and with some marked improvements. And yet the 
leaders of the legislature itself did not assume as large propor- 
tions as lasting combat in debate would have given them. 
Fighters can train only with fighters. The legislature should be 
the cradle of national statesmen. 



Of the more important achievements of the administration of 
1905 the enactment of a general primary election law ranks first. 
This government will also be remembered for the creation of a 
state highway department, for the initial step toward the treat- 
ment of tuberculosis in a state institution, for the calling of an 
election for the submission of the question of calling a consti- 
tutional convention, for granting the right of eminent domain 
to electric railways and for another experiment in Michigan's 
pioneer movement in the taxation of corporate property. 

Railroad legislation moves slowly and conservatively in all 
states. The taxation of sleeping cars and the failure of the 
railroad lobbyists to prevent the enactment of other legislation 
may be taken as a salutary sign in the evolution of Michigan's 
laws. The aggression of private wealth is not a new thing nor 
should it frighten Americans. 

Gov. Warner has also succeeded in holding down the amount 
of money to be raised by taxation for the next two years 
— a task that looks easier than it really is, both because of 
the generosity of former legislatures with state institutions and 
the deep rooted feeling that these institutions are to be well 
cared for. The leaders of the party themselves are satisfied 
that a clean, enviable record has been made by the present gov- 
ernment that will clear the way for another sweeping victory in 
1906. 

When it comes to the personnel of the government in all its 
branches a triumph of democracy is revealed. A glance at the 
facts in the lives of the men who preside over the highest tri- 
bunal in the state and who make and execute our laws, shows 
that they are not hereditary statesmen, nor men of wealth and 
exceptional education and equipment. A very large percent- 
age have worked in the fields, in the woods, and in the primary 
schools of the state in their early days. They are the direct 
representatives of the average intelligence and worth of their 
people. They bring to the legislature a knowledge of human 
nature and the state's needs and condition gleaned from hard 
work in the everv dav world of bread winning. In some cases 



they have risen to the seats of the mighty. In all cases they 
know the seats of the mighty are open to those who will strive 
and who have the capacity to attain. 

The reader will observe, before entertaining himself very 
much with the following pages, that dyspeptic severity and 
seriousness has frequently given way to levity and mirth in the 
presentment of a history, a trait of character, an incident, 
achievement or the appearance of any subject. Trusting to the 
spirit of good fellowship that marked the life of the legislators 
under the dome of the capitol, and aware of the keen apprecia- 
tion of the sublime and the ridiculous on the part of legislative 
newspaper readers, the writer has presumed to be intimate for 
the sake of truth and fun. In some instances, possibly, it may 
appear that he has presumed too much on good nature or on 
tolerance of party criticism. But "truth is mighty and will 
prevail." Nothing has been omitted that would throw any 
light on the career of the legislature of 1905 through the me- 
dium of the personality and activity of the members herein por- 
trayed. Nothing has been included that would achieve other 
results. The writer has attempted to speak boldly, honestly, 
sympathetically, "with charity toward all," and with the hope 
that on some far off evening when prosperity has cheered, or 
even adversity cast down, the subscriber to this souvenir, he 
may sit apart for a moment and refresh the pleasant memories 
or enjoy the nonsense, of his old associates in the government 
of 1905. If the writer succeeds in that he succeeds in all he 
hopes to do. 

"I have written the tale of our life 

For' a sheltered people's mirth, 
In jesting guise — but ye are wise, 

And ye know what the jest is worth." 

— Rudyard Kipling. 




10 




ROBERT N, ADAMS 

(representative.) 

His shaggy hair and blunt speech 
would alarm you if you didn't know 
the man. For he looks as fierce as they 
make 'em. After due acquaintance you 
find he is just like the rest of us, — 
another phase and shade of human na- 
ture. To those native Yankees who 
are fond of thinking there is a real 
type of American apart from all other 
breeds of the English speaking race he 
is a distinct disappointment. This 
Adam's son was born in Ontario, right 
in a hotbed of United Empire Loyal- 
ists who thought as truly that kings 
should govern as that they themselves 
should live. But it is a quarter of a century since the gentle- 
man from Chippewa left them. He has been an ardent republi- 
can in politics and government ever since. 

As an upper peninsvila man Adams has distinguished himself 
by his hankering for primary reform and his desire to prevent 
the promiscuous spread of booze among men who love it with 
an unfaltering love. But the glowing attributes of the gentle- 
man from Chippewa as a legislator are self reliance and inde- 
pendence. He will join the majority any time the republican 
administration wants his vote very badly, provided alwavs he 
is satisfied that nothing of paramount importance as a principle 
to which he is opposed is at stake. He made but little noise 
the last two sessions of the legislature but whenever a pet 
measure was before the house — and somebody has a pet measure 
about every hour, — he had to be reckoned with; not "seen" 
as we understand it in the craft, but simply reckoned with. 

The difficulty in getting Adams's vote is the fact that he does 
not look at law and life through the glasses that fit the vision 
of the majority of the grand dukes from the upper peninsula. 
The corporation is no more natural a companion for him than 
for Eugene V. Debs or Theodore Roosevelt or for Fred A. Hunt 
of Detroit. Adams has the air of a man who would give not 
an inch nor a dollar more to him who had than to him who had 
not. Sometimes he appears even as quixotic on the floor of 
the house as some of his fellow-countrvmen whom I have 
named. 

From a farm in Chippewa county he has sent two sons to 
fight the eagle's battles in Cuba and has been one of the thousand 
myriad forces in the development of the real estate, mines and 
finances of his community. Confidentially, he is well-heeled. 
What more do vou ask? 




DENNIS E, ALWARD 

(secretary of the state central committee.) 

Reading clerk in the national house 
of representatives by reason of the 
same faithful attention to dutv and 
honest loyalty to friends and party that 
started him in political work in Michi- 
gan and demands his labors for the party 
at home. He was secretary of' the state 
central committee from 1894 to "1898 
and has held the same position since he 
was re-elected in 1900. Like his col- 
league, Chairman Diekema, he is sin- 
cerity and integrity in the first in- 
stance, and responsible to the same 
extent for the all republican govern- 
ment of 1905. 

A glance at Alward's career shows he 
is one of the numerous substantial citizens of Michigan who 
started to climb from the lowest rung. He was born in Niles in 
1859. When a student at the state university he stopped his 
course to teach school. In 1878 he founded the Battle Creek 
Moon and set it on its way to prosperity. In 1880 he bought 
the Clare Press and then drifted into politics. He was clerk of 
the senate railroad committee in 1887, assistant secretary of the 
senate in 1SS9, and secretary of the senate in 1893 and 1895. 

Alward is somewhat of a speaker himself. In a rough and 
tumble go-as-you-please row in convention or on the stump he 
is vigorous and convincing, and in splendid control of his grey 
matter. As a man among men, he is a graceful "mixer" and an 
affable companion. His even temper is one of his great assets. 
Nobody ever catches him with the fur flying. It was not many 
weeks ago that Alward and the scribe sat chatting in a Lansing 
hotel when a sober stranger who knew neither scribe nor secre- 
tarv "butted in" on the conversation and asked for the iden- 
tification of a prominent republican leader. Shown the man Mr. 
Stranger immediately launched forth on a philippic of profanity 
and abuse that would have done credit to a 320 degree drunk, 
sparing neither the party nor any of the officers thereof. Alward 
flushed once or twice. Then smiled; and as the stranger retired 
remarked with the utmost composure, "I wonder if the gentle- 
man enjoyed himself." 

There has been no intimation from any quarter that he is to 
be superseded as either reading clerk or secretary. 





NOBLE ASHLEY 

(senator.) 

Such are the chances of war! 

If Gov. Warner had not vetoed the 
Detroit civil service bill Senator Ashley 
would have been THE Detroit legis- 
lator of 1905. Now his enemies will 
wink an eye and the spoilsmen will 
endeavor to prevent his appearance in 
the senate chamber again. 

The passage of the bill through both 
houses was the culmination of a careful, 
quiet, arduous campaign against the 
opposition of Moriarty, who finally gave 
way; and of Doherty, who declared the 
enactment of the bill as against "good 
republican politics." 

In the session of 1903 Ashley, as 
representative, with the aid of Senator Simons, was successful 
in the passage of a law placing the sheriff of Wayne on an $8, 000 
salarv and cutting off his fees. He is an adept in the still hunt. 
His quiet work as an organizer of the Modern Maccabees has 
been generally endorsed by that order and all his legislative 
achievements have been executed in the same style. He is 
a native of Lincolnshire and learned the printing trade in Sarnia, 
Ontario. He has been a Detroiter since 1S80. 

Senator Ashley has been vigorously criticised for his apparent 
indifference as to the progress of the Scott bill attaching a 
referendum to all franchises granted by municipal councils 
in Wayne county outside of Detroit. The bill passed the house 
and went to Ashley's committee in the senate. There were 
several objections to the measure both from corporations and 
from farmers wdio feared it would interfere with electric railway 
construction. The committee itself was hostile. If Ashley 
did sacrifice it, he did so to secure votes for the passage of another 
measure that would please his constituents quite as much, 
and now the governor has sent that measure to limbo. 

How ephemeral are the glories of today and the defeats of 
yesterday! How small the plans of mice and men! Ashley 
gave and the governor has taken away, blessed be the name 
of, — which? The people of Detroit want civil service. The 
people of Detroit will have civil service. The veto of the Ashley 
measure but fires the desire of the voter for something he wants 
and has not got. The veto of 1905 will be a little thing in 1907 
and the big thing wall be the passage of a sound bill. It is 
the little things that make up government as well as life. 
"Little drops of w^ater, little grains of sand, 
]\Iake the mighty ocean, and the beauteous land." 

Sing, brethren, sing! 



13 




THERON W. ATWOOD 

(RAILROAD COMMISSIONER.) 

And what of Theron W. Atwood, 
railroad commissioner, strategist, boss, 
affectionately known among "the boys" 
of the republican machine as "Tip;" — 
"affectionately" known, first, because 
his ingenious brain has helped them 
out of many dilemmas; second, because 
he never reminds them that he is the 
boss ? 

Mr. Atwood is modest. Nothing he 
shuns more than publicity, unless it 
be the breaking of a political promise. 
When Atwoodism became a burning 
issue in the last campaign Atwood 
quietly left the state. Until the smoke 
had cleared away he was visible to 
none except the moose of north Ontario. 

By Atwoodism is meant the spirit of the present epoch of 
boss rule in Michigan: which boss rule the people of Michigan 
have declared they liked even as the people of New York have 
liked it under Piatt, and under other bosses in other states 
where bosses make the party win. Like Piatt, Atwood hails 
from a little country burg — Caro, Tuscola county. Atwood's 
political methods belong to a profession that is altogether par- 
tisan. Yet those methods win — methods righteously condemned 
by men who quickly use them when the battle grows hot. 

Apart from his friendliness for railroads and corporate in- 
terests Atwood has suffered much from the blind hate of the 
people that has fallen on amassed wealth in these latter days. 
He is not a megalomaniac. Power he exercises for what it 
accomplishes; not for the love of wielding it. That power 
lies largely in his ability to read human nature. 

"You've got to give the other fellow his own way just as far 
as possible" was a chance remark of his recently. Speaking 
of a prominent legislator with aspirations to be a leader, he 
said: "A man must have a good balance wheel. When he 
gets warm under the collar he's gone." 

Shorn of his royal halo, with the air of mvstery that surrounds 
a silent, quiet man dispelled, Atwood is for all the world like 
other bipeds that use clothes. And he does not wear horns. 
He is generally smiling, always has a good cigar, is credited 
among politicians and reporters with telling the truth when 
he tells anything. He is charged with distributing large quan- 
tities of campaign funds, but even his enemies do not call him 
a grafter. He is still adviser-in-chief to the state senate, though 
not always victor there. 

In short, he believes in a strong party machine, with a judi- 
cious distribution of patronage, and if his friends insist on his 
being the chief engineer — well, he supposes he ought to consent 
to be the victim. 



14 




THOMAS G. BAILLIE 

(RR PRESENT ATI VE.) 

"Tarn" Baillie likes pig. Some of us 
watched "Tarn" discussing a dead, 
young pig one night, — it was late, d'ye 
mind, — until we couldn't tell which was 
"Tam" and which was the pig except 
for the grunt; and we knew the pig 
was dead. Next to devouring dead pig 
"Tam" likes to laugh — and play a little 
game. It's none of an^^body's business 
how much game or what. "Tam" will 
stand for it anyhow. Besides "Tain's" 
the babe of the legislature — 24 years 
old — and has some rights. 

But to be serious, an apologia must 
be written for "Tam." He was one 
of the "immortal thirteen" of the 

house who voted for a certain railroad bill when a lot of folks 
were shouting "wolf." Please remember, ye critics, that "Tam" 
came from a district that furnishes to the state of Michigan 
an indescribable mixture of governors and railroad presi- 
dents, not to speak of a state-known senator who doesn't 
"Care-a-d — " for any governor, nor who made him. Take 
note, too, that it was the Pere Marquette who gave "Tam" 
a little lift along the highway of progress when he got a job 
in the general traffic manager's department not many years 
ago and then ask him to bite the hand that fed him. If your 
dog did it, heaven help the dog. Remember, too, that "Tam" 
has the nerve to tell 'em to hike to the place of perpetual 
thirst if he sees fit. 

It must be admitted that Rep. Baillie, for a graduate of the 
University of Michigan, showed rather a strong disposition to 
follow the leader. But Baillie graduated in law. And if the 
law wasn't made to show there are two sides to any question 
and that the gazabo with the longest head gets the justice, 
then let's eliminate the faculty of law from these expensive 
institutions of learning. You might just as well ask a full 
house to turn over the pot to a pair of deuces. If the victim 
of this sketch does not understand the difference between a full 
house and a pair of deuces, it's time he joined the Y. M. C. A. 

"Haa-a-a" "Haa-a" "Ha-a." That's Baillie again. Except 
when "Tam" was addressing the house we never saw anything 
but a smile on his face and a chuckle behind it. As a speech 
maker he looks literally fierce. The day he was hornswoggled 
into backing a bill for an open Sunday he looked fiercer. But 
that's a tale out of school. " Tam " wont be hornswoggled again. 
He squared himself for that and resumed his smile. "Tam" 
Baillie is voung, vigorous, appetizing, clean, and moderately 
clever. 

15 




JOHN BAIRD 

(senator.) 

Too modest, notwithstanding all the 
fame he has earned, to wear a middle 
name! Just plain John, or familiarly 
"Johnny," or legislatively "Don't-Care- 

a-D ," because he doesn't. The 

whole story in brief is this, — he pla3'S 
politics like a professional game in 
which the amateur exists to be fleeced, 
and does with religious severity and 
enthusiasm what he says he will do. 
His accurate knowledge of parliamentary 
procedure makes his legislative game 
a tough problem for unsuspecting 
hrst-termers. 

Born amid the frowning guns of old 
Quebec barracks where his father was 
paid to fire shot and shell for her majestv. Queen Victoria; a 
pupil in the public schools of Seaforth, Ontario, a star long 
distance runner who was doped in a matched race in which he 
staked his last penny and lost, a laborer in eastern Michigan 
whither he had come to hide his disappointment, a salt packer 
in the Saginaw valley since that time, — that is the life of John 
Baird. His Falstaff figure does not betray the runner now, 
but the senator moves quite fast enough in other directions 
to show he has some speed left. 

Baird has been senator for three terms and representative 
for one. He conceived the notion last fall that he could not be 
reelected and forthwith notified his friends that he would not 
accept a renomination. The}' insisted that he make another 
fight. He did and won. 

Some more of his friends came down to Lansing during the 
session to tell John just how they wanted the new Saginaw 
charter fixed. The}' wanted a large police commission. John 
decided Saginaw was to have a smaller police commission. 
"But" urged his friends "but — ." John placidly replied "Well, 
we're going to have it this way or we ain't giong to have it at 
all." It was passed John's way. 

"I'm against executive sessions" said John one day. "The 
reporter always gets the news anyway. I'm going to vote 
against executive sessions all the time now." He did. 

A senator one day was complaining that his views had been 
misrepresented in one of the papers. He was in a huff. Baird 
laughed as usual. Baird always laughs no matter what happens. 
"I don't care a d — what the papers say about me" he gurgled. 
"They can say anything they like and have a good time. It 
doesn't phase me." 

His sentiment on the passage of his own primary election 



bill will live, 



It is not worth a damn. 




jrUNIUS E, BEAL 

(representative.) 

Not many of our three dollar a dav 
legislators have seen the old world and 
the best of the new. Even the prover- 
bial pass won't take them far from their 
own sod. But this man Beal from 
Washtenaw will see all there is worth 
seeing as long as the money holds out. 
He has seen the Russia we are all watch- 
ing. He is living for all he is worth, — 
not in the way of Micawber, a little 
overdue all the time, but for all there 
is in life. 

Perhaps it is Beabs early training as 
an editor in Ann Arbor, perhaps it is 
his natural newspaper instinct to know 
what is going forward in the world and 
know it intimately ; but whatever it is he likes to be on the spot 
when anything is doing. He was just as enthusiastic this 
session in fighting for the repeal of the low water alarm law 
as he was to go to Madison, Wis., and hear the stars of that 
state's university and the students of the U. of M. fight the 
battle of primary elections in open debate. 

Where two or three are gathered together there is Beal in 
the midst of them. (This refers to the boys onlv.) His sense 
of humor should have kept him in newspaper work for what is 
more amusing, as well as inspiring, as a close range studv of 
human nature? 

This breadth of interest is sure to make a man valuable as 
a lawmaker and statesman. Half the discrediting criticism 
that is heaped on the pate of the legislator is due to the re- 
quirement that he shall overcome by patient investigation his 
inevitable lack of intimacy with the thousand and one matters 
he is called upon to regulate, and his failure to meet the require- 
ment. Men of the Beal type have the natural bent for such 
investigation. Their conclusions may be onesided, but their 
activity at least begets activity on the other side; and out of 
all of this some good must come. Mr. Beal is at a ripe age for 
service, — 45. He performed no greater service this session 
than by his assistance to place on the stattite books a law re- 
stricting the promiscuous sale to their thousands of victims of 
crushing, damning, demoralizing drugs. 

As a convivial Mr. Beal can be recommended; he knows the 
limit. As a humorist he helps us all to live. As a politican 
he knows nothing better than republicanism. 



^ 



17 




CASSIUS R. BENTON 

(representative.) 

"Said the ant to the elephant, 'who 
are you pushing?' There's one more 
river to cross." 

When the state tax commission put 
its sinuous trunk around the howhng 
member from Northville and ducked 
him in the legislative swamp, Cass re- 
minded them his day was coming. It 
came. The heart of old Cass Benton 
is too full of "the milk o' human kind- 
ness" to harbor one dram of animosity 
against one wayworn soul on the much 
bedraggled tax commission. But Cass 
was convinced that the tax commission 
was not right. Then the elephant came 
up behind hhn and Cass had to move on hurriedly. In the final 
collision the ant had all the honors and, waving a spare leg on 
high, spat on the elephant's trunk and marched off to North- 
ville triumphant. 

Cass will leave a soft fried egg, a charcoal tablet, or even a 
sermon any time you want to sic him on the tax commission. 
Put Cass and a dog-eating Filipino on scratch; put Amariah 
and a new pup at the finish line; and Cass will beat that Filipino 
to it for monev. Benton and the Filipino have still something 
to learn about taxation. But Benton has his advantage, — 
the folks believe his mistakes are honest mistakes and they're 
willing to leave it all to him. And his name is not Gas. The 
records show that he was the only working legislator who didn't 
introduce a single bill. 

Rep. Benton is a fair type of the wholesome lawmaker, — 
a man who has risen from the ranks, who has made himself 
with the assistance of a limited academic education, who has 
shown himself a thorough citizen, who is a property owner, 
who has served his neighbors privately and politically in humble 
and preferred positions alike well, who represents honestly 
and fearlessly the average intelligence of his constituents. 
Whether or not his experience as a supervisor has warped or 
enlarged his view of state taxation remains to be seen in the 
experiments that are now to be tried. But with his openness 
to unbiassed advice from recognized and unprejudiced leaders 
the state would be safe in the hands of such representatives as 
he. 

It is all summed up in this, — Cass Benton is no man's man. 



10 



18 




ARTHUR C. BIRD 

(state dairy and food commissioner.) 

A long time ago Commissioner Bird 
had established his reputation as an or- 
ganizer — long before he had loomed up 
strong in politics. All his life he has 
been interested in the development of 
Michigan's farming lands and has rep- 
resented several rich eastern coinpanies 
in the promotion of agriculture in Mich- 
igan. It was his genius for organiza- 
tion that conceived and brought into 
existence the State Association of Farm- 
ers' Clubs. His talent and his enthusi- 
asm in the study of scientific agriculture 
were recognized by the Michigan Agri- 
cultural College, which bestowed on him 
the exceptional degree of Master of 
Agriculture. 

Since his advent into active state politics he has again demon- 
strated his ability as an organizer. He was in charge of the 
state census of 1904 and was appointed to his present position 
shortly after Gov. Warner took office. 

There are various ways of performing the duties of dairy and 
food commissioner as there are various ways of performing the 
duties of any office. In this instance one method is to go about 
the state with a brass band notifying the general public — firstly, 
that you have a state job; secondly, that you want to hold that 
job ; and thirdly, that if you don't hold it you are going to make 
enough noise to assure the people you are a hustler and should 
hold it. There is another and more effective way — and that is 
to quietlv and thoroughlv inspect all the marketed foods as far 
as possible, to the end that the bad product may be taken off 
the market without injuring any innocent producer, and with 
the support of the manufacturers of wholesome goods in the 
prosecution of the fakir and the mountabank. Mr. Bird has 
chosen the latter method. Several large shipments of coffee and 
other foods have been withdrawn from the Michigan market, 
without any publicity, on the personal assurance of the seller 
that a mistake had been made, and that it wouldn't occur again. 

In politics Mr. Bird has shown proportions that have been 
the envy of many of the men who like to be close to the throne. 
He has generallv been regarded as one of Gov. Warner's closest 
counselors. He is just 41 years of age and never loses a minute. 



j& 



19 




JOHN E, BIRD 

(attorney general.) 

When Charles A. Blair withdrew his 
name from the ticket for attorney gen- 
eral in 1904 and was elevated to the su- 
preme court bench several corporation 
attaches enjoyed a deep feeling of relief. 
When the state central committee placed 
the name of John E. Bird of Adrian on 
the ticket for attorney general the at- 
taches smugly rubbed their hands and 
said Mr. Bird was "a new man; hardly 
as bitter as Mr. Blair and more consid- 
erate." But the first time the attaches 
tried to back Mr. Bird into a corner he 
showed his war paint and has been on 
the warpath ever since. 

The railroad lobby, which is usually 
found manoeuvering on the outskirts of a legislature, is directly 
responsible for the bloodthirstiness of the attorney general. On 
two or three occasions the attorney general found himself handi- 
capped by the manipulations and influence of these gentlemen. 
Then he camped on their trail. Most notable was his victory 
in the passage of the bill allowing him to examine the books of 
the Michigan Central, in order to determine whether the state 
has a good case in the suit brought against that road for the re- 
covery of $4,400,000 in back taxes alleged to have been fraud- 
ulently withheld in years long gone by. Behind the closed door 
of the attorney general's office in the presence of a stenographer 
and a witness the state lawyer "interviewed" several wavering 
members of the house as to their views on the value of the bill. 
They didn't like the stenographer. The bill passed. There was 
a struggle, of course; but it speaks highly to the credit of the leg- 
islature of 1905 that no influence could swerve it from the cause 
of the attorney general in this memorable instance. Mr. Bird 
will be found in war paint any time the whistle blows. 

The attorney general is a placid individual, with bloodless 
lips, pallid face, steel-cold eye, calloused nerve, and a taste for 
the grimmest humor. Occasionally he laughs a laugh that 
startles you and shocks 3^ou for a loud, muscular smile is not 
compatible with that motionless visage. Occasionally some- 
body tries to bluff him with political bluffs or contradictions of 
his idea of the law. Then the bluff is called, — as some well- 
known capitalistic gentlemen not a thousand miles from the 
heart of the metropolis can testify. Bluffing is all right if the 
other fellow doesn't hold the cards. 



j& 




J. EDWARD BLAND 

(representative.) 

When Rep. Bland of Detroit was 
selected as chariman of the house 
committee on gaming interests some 
sportsmen smiled. The enactments of 
the session proved that it is not neces- 
sary for sportsmen to make the best 
laws for sportsmen, nor for railroad men 
to make the best laws for railroads, — 
that is, speaking in the broad sense 
of the greatest good for the greatest 
number. 

Acting on his own statement — "I 
am not an expert on game but I take 
the pleasure of the average man in 
seeing the game and knowing that it 
exists," Bland has assisted in giving 

Michigan what has been characterized as the best protective 
game law written by any legislature in this state. 

Being a lawyer, Bland can see both sides of a case. Born in 
Canada and educated in the United States he can indulge in 
broad views of government. Having hiked through Arizona 
and California, having seen the direful da}" of being dead broke, 
having served as a volunteer marine in the Spanish American 
war, he can almost feel himself a citizen of the world. Having 
been enthusiastically spanked by the two heavy weights of 
the house on the last day of the session he has shown he can 
take what is coming to him and take it gracefully, — if a 200- 
pounder slid bottom end up on a thirty foot rail and belabored 
can be graceful. 

In the ever-going war between wealth and government, there 
are men who establish themselves as popular idols by the practice 
of railroad-baiting, by demagoguery, by jingoistic fighting in 
the name of the people. Bland is not one of these. He has 
refused more than one substantial favor rather than allow a 
corporation to put him under obligations. Persistent, not loud- 
mouthed, he has been found on the side of the commons where 
the commons needed him. Without flinching before hostile 
committees and a hostile majority he has pressed his demand 
for the regulation of electric railway fares, conscious that the 
fight must begin now to terminate a decade hence. 

Bland's great fault is his bachelorhood. Never has the humble 
scribe of this unassuming volume been honored with the story 
of a lost love or a broken heart. Mayhap there are shattered 
hopes that lie deep in the heart of this British American. But 
we have generally believed his singleness was the concomi- 
tant of pure cussedness and would recommend that Detroit 
keep him at home until he subscribes to true Rooseveltian 
doctrine, — and gets busy. 

21 




JAMES B. BRADLEY 

(auditor general.) 

The auditor general is a new figure 
in state politics but a very lively one. 
He is one of the men who have been 
mentioned early and often for the gov- 
ernorship in 1908, — a long wav off but 
#iM|^^^^H not so long in politics. His only public 

. ^^^BRsl^'^I life prior to 1904 was lived in the 

mayoralty of Eaton Rapids and as a 
Mystic Shriner, Pythian and Maccabee. 
His best chance for the governorship 
would seem to lie in direct nominations 
for he has incurred the lasting wrath 
of many of the prominent organizers by 
quietly advising the passage of a direct 
nomination bill. To date he is not 
reckoned among the eligibles by the 
men who have in times past been closely in touch with the list. 
The recount of the votes cast for circuit judge in Wayne 
county served to bring Bradley into state prominence during 
the session. Some of the recount committee, it will be re- 
membered, wanted an unitemized per diem allowance for their 
work in Detroit. The proposed allowance was rather high. 
Bradley promptly refused to O. K. the bills and itemized bills 
were rendered. Some of them contained some remarkable 
expense claims but were legitimate and the auditor general 
at least allowed the whole matter to have a good airing and 
lowered the temperature and the wants of some of the com- 
mittee to normal. 

"Are you going to vote for direct nominations for state 
officers?" a well-known senator on the committee was asked 
during the wrangle. 

"Yes, I believe in direct nominations for candidates for 
auditor general" was the reply. 

Bradley is an active, nervous man, powerfully built, and of 
swarthy complexion. He was born on a farm in Shiawassee 
county in '58 and graduated from Rush Medical College, Chicago 
in '86. He has practised his profession in Eaton Rapids since 
then, besides operating a farm and attending to other business 
interests. He is a student of world history and of modern 
affairs in the broad sense, with some gift of diplomacy and 
manipulative ability, and a strong taste for cigars and good 
company. 




JAMES E. BROCKWAY 

(representative.) 

It is so common as to 1 e almost 
tiresome, — this story of the greybeard 
and his struggle for existence and for 
the upward move, that we can always 
lend a keen ear to the man of tenderer 
years who has a story to tell. Here is 
a man slightly past 30 who has tal- 
lied lumber in the summer and trudged 
off to school in the winter until he was 
al)le to pay his way through college. 
Then he studied law and is now a mem- 
ber of a very live firm in Bay City. In 
the middle of it all he found time to 
serve in the Santiago campaign. His 
latest stunt was to defeat one of the 
democratic representatives of 1903. Any 

exclusive grand army man who thinks he saved the whole pro- 
cess of nature, the rotation of the earth, and the solar sys- 
tem will please note that here is a fair sample of a man who 
fought the forest in his boyhood, fought his country's ene- 
mies when his country needed him, and licked a democratic in 
1904. And this man did not see the light until 1872. All 
honor where honor is due, but let us not forget that there is 
more than one class of men to be honored today. 

There is one incident which has never been told, but which 
places Rep. Brockway in the roll of honor if nothing else does, — 
his vote on the direct nominations bill when the republican 
platform proposition was defeated in the house. The party 
managers needed votes very badly. They needed Brockway's, 
but didn't get it. Brockway could have had most anything 
he wanted to vote for the platform bill. He stood pat and 
was one of the 53 that gave the state direct nominations for 
governor and lieutenant governor. 

Having assured the subscribers to this edition that the truth 
and nothing but the truth would be told, it behooves the scribe 
to remark at this stage of what is rapidly becoming an encomium 
that Brockway must have had some glaring faults, but that he 
succeeded in hiding them better than any of his colleagues. 
Some exception, to be sure, must be taken to his face, though 
he couldn't help that. He is not the best looking man in the 
legislature but altogether too good looking to be in politics. 
His expression imposes an unusual burden of integrity on his 
character. You instinctively believe him. His manner is so 
youngishly pleasant that it scouts scepticism. Sincerity and 
truth are apparently his watchwords. 



J^ 



23 




WILLIAM E. BROWN 

(senator.) 

Hadley township again! Anybody 
who doesn't know that Hadley town- 
ship is in Lapeer county had better feel 
himself to see if he is awake. Hadley 
has been breeding stalwart republicans 
for a very long time. It gave birth to 
the chairman of the senate judiciary 
committee, — the quick firing gun of 
the upper house, and the student of 
affairs. 

Brown is a lawyer, tall, well built, of 
the athletic type, solid, and an abhorrer 
of narcotics. When he opens fire on 
any bill before the senate he electrifies 
the chamber. He has the gift against 
which the ancient philosopher com- 
plained, of making the weaker argument appear the better, 
though he generally takes hold of the stronger side of the case 
in the beginning. Many a bill has been benefited by his perusal 
and by his keen and thorough knowledge of the fundamental 
law of the state. The bill for the inspection of private banks, 
ultimately defeated, would undoubtedly have passed the house 
without a referendum clause had it not been for Brown. 

The senator studied law in the olfice of Chief Justice Joseph 
B. Moore when that gentleman was practicing at Lapeer. He 
did some school teaching when young and graduated in law 
from the state university in 'S-j opening an office in Imlay City. 
He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1892 and moved to 
Lapeer. As public prosecutor he served two terms. 

Senator Brown succeeded Railroad Commissioner Atwood in 
the upper house representing the counties of Lapeer and Tuscola. 
From that district the state has learned to look for conserva- 
tives, for stift' backed partisans, and for stand patters. Brown 
fills the bill. He instinctively sits back on his haunches when 
a radical driver gets up behind him. He hates direct nomina- 
tions more than he dispises populism. He is sharp on the 
trigger. 

"We lost many votes last fall" said one senator in the debate 
on the primary bill. 

"And we still had 60,000 more loyal republicans than all 
the democrats, populists, free silverites, and bolters combined" 
shouted the senator from Lapeer, his voice trembling with 
anger. "We are not here to legislate for deserters." 
All aboard for congress! 



^ 



24 



FLAGGED! 




Before the railroad company could get away with its state tax records 
Michigan's goat coughed up the red shirt. 



25 




ARCHIBALD F. BUNTING 

(representative.) 

The man who makes a bluff worth 
while is the man who is always prepared 
to have his bluff called. Leelanau's 
contribution to the merriment of 1905 
never went wrong on his bluff, — on the 
floor of the house at least. Most of 
us came to regard Bunting just as a 
plain Indian. All coons looked alike 
to him. If it occurred to him at any 
time the fitting moment to kick up a 
rumpus there was a rumpus. No one 
could tell just wdien a rumpus was to 
be pulled off, for Bunting was always 
canny enough to keep his extra cards 
well up his sleeve until the showdown 
came. 
His course on the primary election bills was one of absolute 
independence. His course on the Hudson local option bill 
was something more, — absolute hostilit}'. No ward option 
or precinct option for Bunting. Individual option is enough 
for any man who feels the need of an option. Might as well 
ask a man to vote as to whether he should give himself the 
privilege of eating or smoking or playing a little game of draw. 
Personal liberty is the strength of the republic. Bread's the 
staff of life. And then there's "life" itself. What would we 
shut that out of the market for? Think of all the germs that 
might infest one's anatomy and rule the physiological roost 
with no other germs to hold them in check. Think of the cut 
in the preacher's pay with the devil deprived of half his capital 
and the further shortage of preachers and the depreciation 
of church property! Think of anything! But don't think of 
going up against Bunting's logic! It's too full of realism. Bunt- 
ing is a good lawyer. Besides he likes a drink himself. He 
makes up his mind to win one side of a case and if one argument 
won't suit his point of view another will. Right there we have 
another reason for the existence of law schools. And we find 
ourselves running around in a circle again, just as all our laws 
do and our other institutions when placed under the microscope. 
And Bunting sees all that and has a lot of fun out of the situa- 
tion generallv. A fight is a fight no matter what side of the 
question vou're on; and a fight is not to be sneezed at; if you've 
got enough red blood to enjoy it. 

Rep. Bunting is foxy, shrewd, contentious, strong, fearless, 
with a big, bold, bald, head and a hawk eye that shows you 
he'll be right there the next day when you come back. He is 
a reformed school teacher 34 years of age and squirts water 
out of a toy pistol. 



26 




CHARLES J. BYRNS 

(REPRESENTATIVE.) 

Politicians are sometimes born, not 
made. There is the poHtician who is 
an accident in a small community and 
who gets to Lansing for a term or two; 
the politician who is now and then sent 
here by virtue of a special interest to 
serve with lots of money behind him; 
the politician who comes as often as 
he likes, because his substantial char- 
acter and general solidarity recom- 
mends him to his people, even when 
he is wrong; and the politician Vvdio is 
elected to office because his constit- 
uents never thought of him as anvthing 
else. 

That last qualification seems to fit 
Charles J. Byrns of Ishpeming very well. Byrns is now serving 
his third term in the house and is an aspirant for the senate. 
The conclusion is that he will come to the senate as soon as 
there is a vacancy in his district. He may want to be lieutenant 
governor. When he runs place all your money on him for he 
won't enter until he has the game right. He is now a national 
director in the Modern Woodmen of America, and it seems he 
is to hold that place as long as he can say he wants it. 

As chairman of the state affairs committee of the house, 
Byrns has to deal with much important legislation and gets 
through with it without much friction. Popularity comes 
easily and naturally to him and sits on him gracefully. He 
carries that indefinable atmosphere that makes friends and 
calms enemies. To the first he is always kind; to the second 
he never truckles. He knows everybody's business almost as 
well as he knows his own, and without the appearance of in- 
trusion. 

His ready understanding of human nature puts him in touch 
with the public pulse so closely that even the Duluth, South 
Shore & Atlantic couldn't hold him. His independence of spirit 
is apparent to the casual observer; his warm heart is evident 
not to Irishmen alone; his cleanliness is know^n to all. 

The man who will take a position on any question and hold 
it is worth something, if for nothing more than that he can be 
found in the same place twice. 





IRVIN S. CANFIELD 

(represextative.) 

One joke that never before has gone 
into print was sprung by a member 
of the house who could scarcely muster 
enough strength to carry a motion for 
a routine recess. It was on this wise, 
"It's a wonder Canfield and Van Keuren 
can't see the}" are talking too much." 
The man who was guilty of that obser- 
vation was himself the victim of self 
enchantment. 

And yet a greater percentage of the 
public utterances of the three men in- 
volved was true and to the point than 
were the utterances of the critics. Now 
the reason Canfield talked too much was 
this, — When any man refuses to train 
with the little cliques that naturally develop in any body of 
men, above all when he refuses to train with the big clique, 
commonly called the "push," he is a marked man. You will 
observe, gentlemen, in this specimen another beautiful picture 
of human nature. Apostasy is the mother of hate. No man 
is so eager to discipline, to crush, the man who makes his 
personality stand out alone as he who has never succeeded in 
standing alone or who has never dared. Yet even the apostate 
may be appeased with a sop of surrender now and then. 
But on every proposition Canfield was for Canfield and for 
what Canfield thought about it. His compromise came only 
as the alternative for defeat. He spoke often, — and spoke 
well. He voted often, — and voted well. But he couldn't 
often make the opposition vote or speak with him. 

Canfield's pet measure, — beyond the Alpena primary election 
bill which he passed — was the handling of land deeds and tax 
certificates in such shape that the tax title sharks could not 
seek exclusive information from the auditor general's office 
to hold up innocent purchasers for a quick rake off. Even the 
auditor general himself could have no objection to the bill. 
Everybody knew it was meritorious. But it did not pass. 
And it was defeated on its last chance because Canfield knew 
too much about the land tax and transfer system and his col- 
leagues did not know enough and would not admit it. 

Canfield is another lawyer who made himself and took hard 
bumps in the making. His predecessor gave the habitues of 
legislative halls much to expect from Alpena. Canfield has 
not disappointed them. He will come back. In his second 
term the rough lines of new acquaintance will be gone and he 
will be heard from with effect. 



28 




CHARLES H. CHAPMAN 

(state game axd fish warden.) 

When Chapman was appointed game 

and fish warden by Gov. BHss two 
years ago there were frightful doings at 
Lansing. One or two of the fellow 
townsmen of the new warden didn't 
like him and had a bad attack of heaves 
on the announcement of the news. Mr. 
Chapman's neck was gracefully deco- 
rated with a mill-stone at that time by 
the appointment of one, Brewster, as 
chief deputy. Brewster's expense ac- 
counts made a nasty nosegay for an in- 
vestigating committee of the legislature 
not many years since and Chapman has 
always refused to discuss the circum- 
stances of his appointment as second in 
command. 

But one fine day Brewster went down and out. Chapman 
issued his dismissal without ever cracking a smile and wnthout 
any public discussion. By that act he relieved the department 
of the greatest burden it had to bear and did so w4th very little 
pvrotechnics other than those exploded by the irate Brewster 
himself./ He has laid before the legislature a report that shows 
the expenditure of every dollar in connection with his depart- 
ment and that shows the actual work attempted and accom- 
plished for the last two years. The report, moreover, indicates 
economv and care and serious effort. 

And that is all novelty. Chapman has been struggling along 
on a pittance endeavoring to perform work that would require 
thousands of dollars more than are placed at his disposal. 
Besides money he needs equipment if the fish and game laws 
are to mean anything. Perhaps when the legislature washes 
that dark brown taste out of its mouth after the doses adminis- 
tered by the game department until comparatively recently, it 
will be willing to appropriate more monev for the warden's w^ork. 

The fish industry, and the fishing sport as an attraction for 
the tourist's money, are not inconsiderable in Michigan. Warden 
Chapman has been faithfully trying to place his department in a 
position to give the state the greatest benefits from both. He 
has tried to be warden all the time and is getting results. He is 
a Soo man ; ran a paper there for some time ; then gave it over to 
an enterprising young man who knows how to make money out 
of it. He went to the Soo for his health many years ago, ac- 
quired a crimson complexion, and refuses to leave. 

He is quiet, cautious, of long memorv, and busy. 



J^ 



29 




HENRY E. CHASE 

(deputy attorney general.) 

"Constitutional Chase," a term in pol- 
itics, which originated in the early part 
of the twentieth century in the state of 
Michigan, usually applied to a deputy 
state officer who has held his position so 
long and so tenaciously as to be re- 
garded as a part of a constitutional gov- 
ernment. 

That's the way our children's chil- 
dren will read it when some observing 
foreigner compiles a dictionary defining 
the political slang and phrases of the 
great republic. Chase has been in office 
over ID years. 

State officers taking charge of a de- 
partment for the first time respect the 
salutary custom of retaining in office a well-informed and in- 
dustrious deputy to keep the engines going and see that the 
inachinery is all in good repair. Chase has earned his place in 
the constitution of Michigan by diligent application to duty, by 
studious care in the consideration of the state laws, and by loyal 
championship of his department. When Chase first struck the 
capitol, for instance, the contracts for the heating and lighting 
and general care of the state building were lax enough in some 
cases to allow a team of horses to drive through and take a good 
load of state treasury funds behind them. About the first thing 
Chase set about doing was to fix the contracts so that the state 
would be the gainer and not the loser when any dispute arose. 

Chase is a fat, red-faced man with a large, speaking eye, an 
aldermanic front, a faculty of impressing his views everlastingly 
on the man he is endeavoring to impress, a pointed way of 
making an argument, and a laugh that makes you feel better 
for the rest of the day. He is as kind in handling the victims 
of dementia and hallucination who infest the state departments 
with alleged grievances and proposed legislation as he is in con- 
soling a depositor of the City Savings Bank of Detroit. He loves 
a good legal fight and a chief who loves to fight, has little use for 
the professional politician who carries his profession too far, and 
is politic enough never to get into print backwards. 




30 




ELBERT V. CHILSON 

(secretary of the senate.) 

"Mister Ashley, Mister Baird, Mista 
Brown, MisCook,nisCropseymsCurtismsD 

hert-y— s-y-fy-s-hay spresidentcho 

rumsenatespresent. ' ' 

That was not the steam escaping from 
the boiler, merely Chilson calling the 
roll. Chilson could break any talking 
machine he ever went up against. Sen- 
ators who were inclined to take a short 
nap after lunch found it very incon- 
venient for answering a roll call at the 
right time was as nifty work as beating 
the pistol on a hundred yards' dash. 
"Chils" always struck the same gait 
on the reading of a bill or any docu- 
ment before the senate. He had been 

a newspaper man. He knew how easy it was to read a column 
of matter four lines at a time and he didn't like to waste his 
breath going at a one line pace. His secretarial work was al- 
ways cleaned up with the same precision and dispatch. He 
furthermore acted as the parliamentary mentor of the presiding 
officer on finer points because he had been through the mill 
before. 

The only objection to Chilson as a secretary was the unmaking 
of a good politician. Of course he had an opportunity as secre- 
tary to interpose his political opinion now and then, but he had 
not the same freedom he could have enjoyed as a senator him- 
self. His foxiness is valuable. If there is anything he likes it 
is a political situation and the fun of getting out of it with a 
whole hide. "I've had my heart broken a dozen times," he 
says, "because I couldn't get my own way. But that is all 
part of the game." Up at the Soo, Chilson's old bailiwick, his 
political enemies know he can fight and fight fast. But like all 
political fighting it grows irksome after a time. 

Chilson's temper is a beauty under fire. It flames and 
flashes without regard to the furniture or the paper on the wall. 
He resents a slight or an injustice with the full force of his 
whole being, and laughs uproariously at a good joke with the 
same intensity and abandon. He is a bundle of nervous en- 
ergv with little spare meat, natty clothes, dandy ties, and a 
readv smile on davs when rheuinatism is leaving him alone. 




31 




ALBERT B, COOK 

(senator.) 

He walks timidly 
brambles. He runs 
open places for the 
him. He will not 
drooping blossom, 
serpent lies coiled, 
beautv of the bud to 



among the thick 
speedily past the 
sirens are calling 
pluck yon sweet 
for beneath the 
preying on the 
draw its victims. 



Nimbly he skirts the pitfalls and the 
thickets, tenderl}" tapping the ground in 
front before trusting it with his weight; 
and avoiding the wild beasts that sleep 
concealed in the underbrush. And at 
last the dav comes, and the session is 
over, and Parsifal returns to his own, — 
pure, spotless, undefiled Parsifal, safe 
from the claws that tried to snatch him 
from the path of rectitude or swipe his vote if for a moment 
the weary head drowsed. 

The robust young farmer from Shiawassee has seen many 
tricks turned and has vowed not to be entrapped. "Better 
move slowly than regret your haste," is his maxim. He does 
not fear himself, nor the temptation of joining the majority in 
return for bills receivable. Upright, manly, whole-souled, he 
sets out on his way when the session opens determined to com.e 
back conscience-clear, and ready for any inquisition his con- 
stituents may wish to inaugurate. His anxiety is the possi- 
bility of being fooled. The problem of his Lansing life is "Where 
am I at ? " 

Senator Cook has shown himself as fair a man as ever graced 
a legislative chamber. He was not satisfied with the republican 
platform of 1904 as far as primary elections were concerned 
and flatly told his people so. He made the best apologies he 
could for standing by the platform that held so great a flaw 
from his point of view, but from that same point of view he 
was ready to fight for his party when it was unjustly attacked. 
His primary reform opponents were loud in his praise for his 
contradiction of the statement made before the associated 
farmers' clubs that the legislature of 1903 had been exceptionally 
extravagant. He was one of the minority stalwarts of 1903 
and in defending the legislature he defended the senate majority 
that had tread on his neck on more than one occasion. As a 
trickster he is absolutely no good. 

But how he does love a fast prize fight or a rabbit hunt! 



^ 



32 




JESSE R. CROPSEY 

(senator.) 

He's a pooh bah in Vicksburg, is 
Cropsey. Some ambitious repubhcans 
climbed into each others' wool over in 
Kalamazoo and kept all their friends 
awake o' nights telling their own county 
and Calhoun wh}^ they should be sent to 
the state senate. Just to pacify the 
aspirants, Cropsey was yanked off the 
ticket as presidential elector and nomi- 
nated for the senate, — another lawyer 
if you please, village attorney for 13 
years, president of the board of educa- 
tion, former circuit court commissioner. 
He'll tell you the rest if you really 
want to know. 

The senator didn't get nervous pros- 
tration this session from attending to business, but he attended 
to all they asked him to attend to. He was the undertaker. 
There was an advantage in sending bills to his federal relations 
committee, because such a motion took precedence over a 
motion to "indefinitely postpone" and accomplished the same 
object. The morgue was located in "Room A. — opening from 
the senate chamber, east" and an obliging committee clerk 
was always ready to exhibit the corpses whenever Chairman 
Cropsey was not on hand. Senator Moriarty, chairman of the 
railroad committee, and Senator MacKay of Detroit formed 
the majority of the directors of the morgue. It was there the 
Van Keuren resolution endorsing President Roosevelt's policy 
on railroad rebates reposed until congress had adjourned. 

Cropsey himself was never under very good control. He had 
a way of kicking over the traces whenever it pleased his fancy, 
much to the annoyance of some of the managers who had under- 
stood he was a stand patter. He assisted very considerably 
in bringing the two houses together on a direct nominations 
bill, which was quite as much as was expected from the home 
county of Senator Burrows and a Dingley. Cropsey's mind 
was not made to order. Above all things he was even tempered, 
good natured and cordial ; and even at times convivial. 




33 




WILLIAM L. CURTIS 

(senator.) 

In the life of Senator Curtis of 
Petoskey there is a verg good tip for 
prosperous old gentlemen with a bank 
account and worthy sons. Many pros- 
perous seigniors have an idea that the 
boy should get out and hustle for his 
money the way they did in the good 
old days. 

Now Curtis was not rated as the 
wealthiest man in Michigan b}^ a large 
wad, but as fast as his boys qualified 
for business he set them up for all he 
could afford without crippling himself, 
and told them that was all there was 
coming to them. If they are capable 
of taking care of the money that would 
come to them on the demise of their sire, the}^ are capable of 
taking care of it now; and now is the time they need it when 
they have youth and vigor to cooperate with it. That was 
Curtis's process of reasoning. He is very well satisfied with 
the experiment and proud of his family. 

Senator Curtis is the patriarch of the senate, born in '42, 
and from January to October older than Senator Van Akin. 
He looks to be the tallest man in the senate. He has a ready 
laugh and an old country complexion, with a rotundity and 
general bearing that would undoubtedly entitle him to a pair 
of spats and a monocle in Old Lunnon. 

Two years ago it was discovered that Curtis had cattle out 
in the Dakotas. That information did not become general 
property until he was missing when the final vote came on the 
primary election bill and the cause of reform was tarred and 
feathered. This session he began to get anxious about his 
cattle and was about to hike again, when a letter from one of 
his boys told him to let the cattle go to the devil so long as 
Michigan got primary reform. Senator Curtis left his cattle 
to bellow about his inattention and stayed by his guns until, 
as he put it, "the tail stopped wagging the dog" and the vote 
was taken. 

Senator Curtis has filled two terms in the senate and one in 
the house. He made some of the money he gave his bo^^s 
by 19 years' of hard farm management in Kalamazoo county. 
With one son he now owns the First National Bank of Petoskey. 
He has been mavor of Petoskev with the endorsement of both 
parties. 



34 




FREEMAN L. DECKER 

(representative.) 

When a man can hold down a seat 
on a board of supervisors for 24 con- 
secutive years and wind up as chairman 
and general high cockalorum, it's time 
to take off your hat to him. For the 
supervisor looks after the tax rolls and 
the tax man has rarely been popular 
since the days of Pharaoh. 

But Representative Freeman L. 
Decker, of the township of Forest, 
Missaukee county, has done all that. 
It is related how some democrats and 
some high strung republicans in Decker's 
county put up a little job to give him 
a bad jolt in the popular estimation 
a few months ago, and how Decker 

knew he was right, turned the attorney general's opinions on 
the enemy, and just remembered himself in time not to put 
his fingers to his nose. 

How does he win? Well, the successful politician always 
figures on two contingencies — first, Am I right? and second. 
Can I make a majority of the voters believe it? Decker seems 
to have enough natural sagacity to solve the first problem with- 
out much difficulty ; and they sa}^ up in his country he has enough 
pigs to solve the second even more easily. 

Decker, you know, has a snug little sum buried under the 
old oak tree or laid away in the corner in an old sock — just how 
much and where the tax assessor will have to find out for him- 
self. There are some things a reporter should not give away. 
And if Squire Decker in the enjoyment of his abundance, the 
fullness of his heart and the aspirations of his political soul 
chooses to present his neighbor with a juicy, toothsome porker 
now and then, whose business is it? 

They say, too, up in his country, that Decker has a way of 
getting delegations in a pinch that makes the poor pig blush. 
But he gets them. Ask Decker's political opponents about the 
Mesick-Darragh fight for congress a few years ago. It is to be 
noticed that Darragh won. 

Decker's ideas of politics and statesmanship are as good as 
his constituents want. He has stood pat for direct nominations 
under heavv pressure from the administration. He has im- 
portant work to do on the taxation committees of the house — 
and does it. He generally votes as though he didn't care who 
knew it. He "takes" with the boys, swears by the republican 
partv, and gabbles incessantly about Missaukee and Kalkaska. 
There are LL. B.'s in economics and philosophy who would 
give half their learning for Decker's warm hand and soft smile. 



35 




LUREN D. DICKINSON, 

(representative.) 

Here is a man who has lived a very 
earnest life, — too earnest. He admits 
that. His confession to the scribe is 
this: "For 25 years I did two men's 
work every day." The result of all this 
abuse of his God-given faculties is a 
reputation as stock and fruit raiser, an 
interest in a creamery association, an in- 
terest in a bank, a trusteeship in 
a Methodist church, a membership 
in the Knights of Pythias, a captaincy 
in the reform wing of his party, and a 
drooping of the chin between the fetlocks 
on rainy days that startles his friends 
and makes him sorry for himself. 
The rest of the confession is "I've quit 
that now. I have got to;" this last with the air of a deeply 
grieved man. And Dickinson is only 46. 

It will be noticed that the great apostle of the strenuous life 
is equipped with about as strenuous, husky, machinery as can 
well be attached to a human frame ; and yet President Roosevelt 
attends to his rough riding and outing as religiously as he does 
to his affairs of state. It doesn't pay to run a steam launch 
with an ocean going engine. "I've quit that now." 

With Dickinson it's the old story again of the fight for the 
top, — the toil, toil, toil until the habit of toiling has conquered 
every other instinct and the green fields look darkish brown, 
and the sun blisters and the stars hide and the whole world is 
a burning furnace, and there is no escape until the end of the 
chapter. The man from Eaton taught school in the winter 
and studied at night in the summer after the other man's work 
was done. He ate the bread of slavery until he got on his feet. 
But his self-slavery could not stop then. He must go on and 
on. Until one day the fields did look brown and the stubborn, 
indomitable spirit was made to halt here or move direct to 
the hereafter. With the exercise of ordinary common sense 
he should be with us for another 46 years. 

All the sincerity, the intensity, the perseverance, that made 
him the prosperous citizen, has made him the insistent, business- 
like legislator, mellowed by hardship and shattered health, 
but with the single purpose of wrenching from his conservative, 
unyielding party the direct nominations his people demanded, 
without disruption but with success. 




36 




GERRIT J. DIEKEMA 

(chairman of the state central committee.) 

While Chairman Diekema is not con- 
stitutionally connected with the all re- 
publican government of Michigan, he 
properly ranks as a part of it in the sense 
that he is partially responsible for it. 
He has been a crafty commander-in- 
chief. He has fought against dissen- 
sion in his own ranks and against a su- 
perior brand of gunpowder. His has 
been the delicate task of defending a 
platform on which he had honest doubts 
and against which he had practically 
declared himself. His has been the part 
of the peacemaker in Michigan in the 
name of the party of the republic. How 
skilfully he performed his duty, how 

well he planned his battles, the statistics show. His friends say 
it is time he fought some battles for himself, and his candidacy 
for the governorship in 1908 would be the logical development 
of a political career which many people anticipate. 

Diekema's political career runs far back. Beginning in 1884 
he was elected representative for four successive terms from his 
old Dutch home of Holland. In 1889 he was speaker of the 
house at 30 years of age. In 1893 he ran ahead of his ticket 
but was defeated for attorney general. In 1894 he was one of 
the commission to make recommendations on the incorporation 
of fourth class cities and villages. In 1895 he was mayor of 
Holland. For over five years he has been chairman of the state 
central committee. 

His dominant characteristic is sincerity. He wants his party 
to win, because he believes in his party. He also wants it to be 
sincere, because he believes in sincerity. He wants party har- 
mony and party integrity and republican government and gov- 
ernment by republicans, and above all clean government. He 
is a native American with sturdy Holland parentage — no room 
for frivolity or flippancy or duplicity in that blood. He likes 
to make a speech before a convention — likes nothing better. 
He always brings the delegates together with an eye-opener of 
republican glorification and democratic damnation that sends 
the mercury up the tube a few degrees and gives the boys a 
chance to loosen up their larynx for the main performance of the 
day. 

Wait for the big cake walk in 1908. 



37 




ALFRED J. DOHERTY 

(senator.) 

space is limited. Much must be left 
unsaid. And there is so much to say! 
Doherty of Clare was first elected to 
the senate of 1901 when he behaved 
himself with becoming modesty and 
party loyalty. In 1903 he took the 
position of administration whip, vacated 
by Railroad Commissioner Atwood, and 
succeeded in securing the action desired 
by "the boys." In 1905 he assumed 
the same position, but he was compelled 
to listen to the advice of the governor 
as well as that of Mr. Atwood. A slight 
symptom of revolt against his leader- 
ship on the floor was manifested during 
the early part of the session, but was 
quickly suppressed by Doherty 's apparent self-abnegation on 
some minor matters, while he kept a watchful eye on develop- 
ments, and finished the session in presumably good standing 
with all the factions that had begun pulling at cross purposes. 
Doherty does not assume the attitude of the boss, nor even 
of the leader. It is his pleasure to act as the general agent 
on legislation in the upper house and come out of each in- 
significant scrap a victor. He has been chairman of the com- 
mittee on railroads in the past, in which capacity he has assisted 
in preventing the enactment of any marked reforms for the 
regulation of corporations. Personally, he has never stood 
for any overpowering opinion of his own, and has always found 
it as comfortable on one side of a question as the other provided 
he can't induce the boys to follow in the direction indicated 
in the first instance. No bill goes through the upper house 
until he has seen what there is in it. While he is licking one 
finger he is putting another one in to a fresh pie. Nothing 
is too small to receive his attention. 

Dohertv is a good hearted Irishman. He is a native of New 
York, and plumes himself on his American citizenship, but some 
of his ancestors were careless enough to accumulate a family 
name in old Erin. He is more sensitive than would be supposed 
from his mode of operations, more attentive to what the public 
prints say of him than he pretends to be, yet always ready to 
take the gaff with a smile when the truth is told. 

Senator Doherty's admirers have mentioned him in connec- 
tion with the governorship. He scouts the idea himself. He 
has not decided whether or not he will return to the senate. 



38 




THOMAS E, DOUBLE 

(represextative.) 

Chairman of the Montmorency board 
of supervisors, elected to the legislature 
on an anti-primary election platform 
and copartner in the great Double-Ivory 
bill, — these are the claims to distinction 
of Rep. Double. He is one of the 
quietest men in the house ; never makes 
any noise, but just watches the game 
as he would were there heavy money 
on the board. Between farming and 
lumbering, by the way, he seems to 
have enough cash. 

Double is one of us Dutch. Though 
he claims nativity in Ohio his parents 
offered sacrifices to a transatlantic 
taste for limburger and sauerkraut. 

So when the aged Holmes was one day protesting with 
vehemence in a private chat that "my people want direct 
nominations for governor," Mr. Double placidly and smilingly 
replied "my people don't." Mr. Double thereupon laughed 
heartily. That indicated that it was a joke, the point being 
that the Dutch blood had told the gentleman from Gratiot 
there were other constituents and other representatives to be 
considered in the settling of the great issue of 1905. 

Double's unassuming manner would never tell you he had 
been township clerk, school examiner of his county and county 
clerk, and a general political hustler ever since he put foot in 
Montmorency in 1884. His training as supervisor, too, fitted 
him most admirably for the work of representative. While 
he never appeared on the floor during a debate his counsel in 
the committee room and in the free and easy discussion outside 
the regular sessions of the house showed that he had paid 
attention to the affairs of the day and had formed intelligent 
views on all of them. 

"If there is one ofhcer who is nearer to the people than an- 
other" declared Attoreny Fred A. Baker of Royal Oak in 
a recent address to the house "it is the supervisor. He is closely 
in touch with every need of his constituents, he knows them 
all personally or else they all know him, and he represents more 
nearly than any other elective ofiEicer, I believe, the average 
intelligence of his communitv. " 

That is why men of the Double type are valuable under our 
form of government. He is never very far removed from his 
constituents and he lives their life. 



.S9 




GEORGE W, DUNCAN 

(representative.) 

Labor's lack of wise, patriotic, sane 
leaders may yet wipe smears of blood 
over the pages of this country's history. 
The walking delegate who must be 
"seen," the union that pays for thugging 
and slugging, the adviser who counsels 
strike and war where peace and vic- 
tory can be assured, — all these are driv- 
ing their brethren into the lion's mouth. 
The mention of these modern condi- 
tions is germane to the subject of this 
sketch, for it defines Rep. Duncan quite 
clearly in a negative way. Next to the 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 
the typographical unions have borne 
the palm for conservatism, sanity, 
achievement. For much of his life Duncan has been earning his 
living as a typographer. He has been president of the De- 
troit Trades' Council and of Typographical Union No. i8 and 
was the first secretary and treasurer of the Michigan Federa- 
tion of Labor. In all his work he has sustained the confidence 
of his coworkers and commanded the respect of employers. 

As a lawmaker Duncan has now served two terms. This 
session he has been acting as secretary of the Wayne Delega- 
tion and has assisted in several instances in inducing that hydra 
headed creation to pull itself together and act as one body. 
He has shown none of the petty jealousy and envy and intrigue 
that characterizes several representatives from Wayne in every 
delegation she sends to the capitol. He has devoted his brain 
to the performance of its natural functions and probed every 
matter of importance on which he has been asked to vote. 
His political game has been played in the sight of all. He has 
been a republican even to the extent of supporting the Detroit 
municipal administration all through the piece and has declined 
to be rewarded at this time for his loyalty with a job. 

For the sake of labor itself, if not for the community, Duncan 
should be returned. From him everybody is sure of fair treat- 
ment. 




40 




HORATIO S. EARLE 

(state highway commissioner.) 

The new state highway commissioner 
is no stranger among us. In the stren- 
uous days of the original Colby primary 
election bill Earle was a senator from 
Detroit, and had the delightful task of 
steering between an energetic number of 
radicals on one side and a threatening 
crowd of conservatives on the other. He 
was sure to expose a wide expanse of 
neck whichever way he turned. 

He did. The following campaign he was 
forced into the ranks of the conserva- 
tives, was taken up as their candidate, 
and defeated for the nomination by 
James E. Scripps, the candidate of the 
reformers. That was a bitter fight, 
fought by many of the conservatives past the nomination and 
into the election. The fact that Mr. Scripps has recently been 
credited with endorsing the appointment of Mr. Earle as high- 
way commissioner speaks as highly for Earle's qualifications for 
that position as for the public-spiritedness and liberality that in- 
spired the endorsement. 

Mr. Earle has been making inventions for himself and acting 
the good Samaritan to Michigan's bad roads for several years. 
He has had experience and enthusiasm — has them yet — and that 
is more than half the battle. Now with $go,ooo of good state 
money behind him for the next two years he ought to be able to 
demonstrate. He will. 

He was the only man mentioned for the position at any time 
within recent years, but never made himself a candidate. "I'm 
not going to ask you to appoint me highway commissioner," 
he told Gov. Warner. "I'm going to leave that to you. You 
know a highway commissioner when you see one. I believe 
you will appoint the best man you can find for the place." Earle 
has not changed his belief. Ever see him in action? He is the 
fastest talker in Michigan. When he can't make his auditors 
come his way with ordinary, sane logic, he loosens his buckles 
and puts the victims to the bad in a whirlwind of words, hoots, 
and jokes. He acquired that whirlwind stunt when he was 
young. He used to box — with the open hand, always with the 
open hand; but don't think he can't use a stiff fist punch when 
he wants to. He's a little fellow with a springy step and stands 
ready to try out any man his age — 50 years — and weight, at a 
quarter mile, high jump, boxing, wrestling or 100 yards. Think 
he'll do? 



J& 



41 




PHILIP EICHHORN 

(representative.) 

Some people go to the legislature be- 
cause they love political distinction ; 
some go because they have legislation to 
secure ; some go because they think it is 
"nice;" others couldn't tell why they go 
nor could anyone else. " Phil " Eichhorn 
goes primarily because he likes to be a 
good fellow. 

Unless it be Higgins of Cass, it would 
be difficult to name any legislator who 
has more real fun out of a session at 
Lansing than has the Port Huron hotel 
man. Every few days he is carrying 
some lonely lawmaker off to his hostelry 
and filling his stomach over Sunday. 
Anyone who eats in Lansing for 
more than a day or two at a time knows how popular that is 
bound to make any man. Then he comes back, pla3^s a game 
of pedro with the boys, and passes a little bill giving electric 
railways the right of eminent domain. Eichhorn can have more 
fun out of that than a baby elephant with a new velocipede. 
And when Eichhorn laughs, hold your breath; hold your breath 
I say, or you'll find yourself trying to pass it over to him to help 
him out. He chuckles, explodes, strains his chest, takes a fit, 
gets very red and then squares away with a convulsive jump 
that reminds you you have lost your wind watching him. 

Then sit down a few moments and you will hear from the 
speaker, — "The gentlemen from St. Clair Mr. Eichhorn." 
You can start for home now, for that's Eichhorn's motion to 
adjourn. When Eichhorn was absent from any session the 
house used to go on doing business until the sun went down 
and the owls caine out to help it look wise for nobody else pre- 
sumed to offer Eichhorn's motion. 

Eichhorn had the distinction of being one of half a dozen 
men in the lower peninsula who kept the grand dukes from be- 
yond the straits looking to their honors as friends of the corpor- 
ation. No machine man ever trod the halls of the capitol who 
was so absolutely indifferent to consequences or threats as this 
man when he set out to vote. Direct. nominations are to him 
bete noir and railroad correction an unnecessary waste of time. 
And yet Eichhorn was the author of the sane stiggestion of 
fixed salaries for legislators, which suggestion was done away 
with in the other end of the capitol. 

Eichhorn held federal offices for years and there is something 
about a federal office that makes a man charmingly careless of 
provincial criticism. 



42 




GEORGE E. ELLIS 

(representative.) 

It was advertised all through Mich- 
igan last fall that the renowned "Dea- 
con" Ellis of Grand Rapids had broken 
into politics. News soon came from 
the Kent district that hell was out 
for noon. The "better element" in 
in the second city, it seems, took 
Ellis's candidacy for the legislature 
as a piece of effrontery. Like the 
"better element" in our own lovely 
metropolis, they were quite accus- 
tomed to being taken into camp but 
they refused to be led by a profes- 
sional. For the "Deacon" has the 
reputation of being a very successful 
speculator and card shark. 

But the "Deacon" called their bluff. "I've made my pile" 
was his sage observation "so I won't be looking for another 
one if I go down to Lansing. You fellows want a square deal 
and I never handed out anything else." The "Deacon's" 
plurality was nearly 6,000. 

Then we all hiked off to Lansing full of expectancy to see 
the new freak in politics in much the same frame of mind in 
which we would rubber concentratedly at the prize joker in 
a minstrel show. It would have surprised no one if the "Dea- 
con" had broken into Gov. Warner's office and offered to stake 
him a primary election bill against a cheese factory on "horses." 

What happened? The desperate "Deacon" turned out to 
be a college bred man, of clean appearance, honest, frank 
speech, who neither drank, smoked, swore, nor "rounded," 
who never even showed any proclivities of the professional 
gamester, who inspired trust in his colleagues, and who left 
Lansing one of the honored men of the house. Not one roll 
call found Rep. Ellis deserting the people's side of the issue 
or dodging. 

It is the frill-less ingenuousness of his tone of voice articu- 
lating the best unconscious humor that makes Ellis's sincerity 
so entertaining. No inflection ever varies the absolute pla- 
cidity, no excitement ever alters the calm pitch of his drawl, 
when he arises on the floor of the house to say, — "The hy- 
draulic company said they didn't want me to do anything 
with this bill until they had seen me. I thought it would be 
a pretty good scheme to pass the bill and let them see me after- 
ward;" or this, "I hope you people aren't going to get excited 
over the moral side of this Sunday closing bill. It ain't a 
question of morals at all, just a matter of common sense." 



4.3 




TOWNSEND A, ELY 

(senator.) 

Senator Ely claims that his father was 
the first man to settle on the north side 
of Pine River in Gratiot county. His 
family went there from Indiana in 1854. 
The senator is still operating the farm, 
and not at a loss by any means. 

There is a little private family episode 
about the old farm, which episode, 
with apologies to an outraged confidence, 
will be related in about twenty words 
right here. For it points a moral. 
Senator Ely is the father of one of those 
farm bred boys who decided that he 
could not let his light shine in such a 
limited sphere of activity. Farm life 
looked like drudgery and the distant 
fields of the unknown far greener than his own. So he went to 
college. Then he began to practice a profession in Detroit. 
And then he got sick of it all. And gradually he woke up. 
Now he is getting next to nature again 'way down in New Mexico 
and is making money instead of spending the old man's. 

The scribe has outraged the senator's confidence on that 
story because it may perchance reach the ears of some young 
noodlekins who feels that genius has made his carcass its abode 
and who can't see a good thing when he has it. Budding youth 
sometimes exuberates until the old man looks like an old foci. 
But he isn't. In the Ely case the old man is still at home on 
the farm, one of the most prosperous, best groomed, and com- 
fortable citizens of a comfortable state, quite satisfied that he 
has done something in this world in that he has made use of 
the instruments placed within his reach. He won a second 
lieutenancy with the Michigan troops after entering the ranks 
as a private at the opening of the war. He went back to the 
farm, has been president of the village of Alma for three terms, 
and was postmaster under both Hayes and Harrison. He is 
now 62 years of age, bronzed and hearty. 

Senator Ely will be recorded in the anuals of '05 as the father 
of the bill creating Michigan's highway department, and as one 
of the men who gave Michigan her first general primary election 
law. 

His only collar is of the ordinary linen variety. 



44 



L««iJ 


^ 









AUGUSTINE W. FARR 

(SEXATOR.) 

Still the handsomest man in the 
legislature! Mr. Farr bore that honor 
in 1903 and must be accorded it once 
more. To be sure Senator Traver of 
Wayne is in the running, and in strong, 
but on general principles Wayne is not 
entitled to any prize that can be just 
as well held by somebody up state. 
Therefore Onekama is the happy town. 

Senator Farr is a very mild mannered 
man, with silver grey hair, rosy com- 
plexion and kindly blue eye. He is 
anything but strenuous. Yet his supply 
of calm reserve and perseverance has 
carried him through some experiences 
that would give all the scope for strenu- 

ousness more strenuous men could wish. In his younger days, 
while in charge of a large lumber camp along the Lake Michigan 
shore, he led his men against a raging forest fire that gutted 
the whole of the western part of the state and wiped out towns 
and villages and other camps owned by the same concern, Farr's 
being the only property preserved to his employer. He did that 
as a matter of course, as he does everything. Most of his 
interests today lie in real estate and farming. Besides holding 
several local offices, he was a member of the legislature of '77. 
He has just completed his third term in the senate. 

For the past two sessions Farr has been chairman of the 
committee on cities and villages and has tried to be as liberal 
with the petitioners who came before him as the majority of 
that committee would allow him to be. He has been sorely 
tried by men who do not see as he does in the enactment of 
local legislation, but has never retaliated by trickery, skuldug- 
gery, or invective. 

He is firm, honored and honorable, altruistic as the golden 
rule, loyal always to his party and to himself, courteous to his 
friends, considerate of such enemies as he may have, and think- 
ing often, speaking sometimes, and tenderly of his home and 
familv. 




45 




ANDREW FYFE 

(SEXATOR.) 

Born in Glasgow, trained in the public 
schools of Ontario, a furniture worker 
and reporter in Grand Rapids, a poli- 
tician who gets about anything he wants. 
That's "Andy" Fyfe. Anybody who 
has seen him enjoy a first class row in 
the senate knows how he got there. 

He did some more things, too. Once 
upon a time he was appointed to a 
clerkship in the superior court in the 
second city. There he studied law and 
was admitted to the bar. President 
Cleveland appointed him surveyor of 
the port in '93. Then he dipped into 
insurance work and can see a victira a 
very long way off. In '96 he jumped 
the democratic party and went on the stump to fight Bryan 
and free silver. Now he is a republican senator and has been 
in the race for the collectorship of Grand Rapids. He is 42 
years old, looks 10 years younger, and acts less. 

Fyfe is a song bird and story teller. He has a new story for 
every time the man makes change and insists on singing when 
he feels like it or any old time the other fellows feel like it. As 
this volume has to go through the mails his repertoire of good 
varns will be reserved for another edition. 

Fyfe was the reform leader in all the important fights on the 
floor; firstly, as stated above, because he enjoys a first class 
row; and secondly, because nobody felt inclined to go to it 
with the vim of the Scotchman. 

"The senator from the sixteenth does not understand the 
English language" roared Moriarty in a hot debate one day. 
"I thought I could read English pretty well" retorted Fyfe 
"but I will admit I'm a little shy on the Irish." 

"That isn't the way it reads at all" said Doherty the day 
after in another mix-up with Fyfe. "The meaning is as plain 
as the English language can put it." 

"Yesterday it was the Moriarty 's who couldn't understand 
English, and today it's the Doherty's" was the quick rejoinder. 
Fyfe with the help of Baird, made the losing fight against 
the $10,000 grant for the state fair at Detroit. There are some 
good lawyers who think he won. In that clash he showed the 
same knowledge of and sympathy with human nature, the 
same acumen in debate, and the same clearness of vision that 
characterized his arguments in nearly all the parts he played. 



46 




WILLIAM J. GALBRAITH. 

(REPRESENTATIVE.) 

"The commander of thought and 
expression." Such was the compH- 
ment paid to the gentleman from 
Houghton by Higgins of Cass, which 
offers still further proof of the keen- 
ness of Higgins's perception. 

Galbraith is essentially a student 
both of theories and affairs. Having 
made a specialty of the English lan- 
guage as instructor he naturally knows 
how to most forcibly place his views 
before his brethren. It is this ability 
to think and speak that has ranked 
him among the first leaders of the 
house for two sessions. As the spokes- 
man of the ultra-conservative wing of 

the legislature he has been given extraordinary opportunity 
to display his forensic powers. As one of few men in any 
legislature who can probe and solve such abstruse questions 
as details of taxation and corporation management his oppor- 
tunity has been further enlarged. His exposition of the evils 
of direct nominations were quite as entertaining as his defense 
of his bill giving the tax commission powers of equalization 
was logical, forceful, compelling. Allowances must be made 
for the natural disputatiousness of the lawyer, but on larger 
matters Galbraith was always a haven of rest to the pencil 
stricken reporter. He was chairman of the committee on 
taxation. He must come back and go higher up. 

Personally, he is just a trifle flinty as a vote getter. They 
have a different way of doing things in the upper peninsula. 
In the capitol the gentleman from beyond the straits must 
contend for votes against gg other men who can rank as leaders 
in their respective communities, who must be very close to 
their constituents, and who easily and naturally solicit votes 
as favors rather than demand them. It is the common handi- 
cap of all the northern men. Galbraith is loaded with Scotch 
and Irish blood. For fighting purposes there is none better 
though it sometimes runs shy on molly coddle. He leaves 
too much to his logic, forgetful of the fact that logic was not 
made for legislators nor politicians. 

Integrity, worth, impatient intellect are his, and a clean 
soul. "I thank God" was his diatribe one day in reply to an 
insinuation "that the milk o' human kindness has not turned 
to gall in me, that every man to me is not guilty until proven 
innocent." 

A William Galbraith, now and then. 
Is relished bv the dullest men. 



47 




EDWIN N, GARDNER 

(SERGEANT-AT-ARMS OF THE SENATE.) 

In the days of Moses Parshelsk}- and 
glorious neckwear and fair women and 
diamond rings and nabob raiment and 
luscious locks, the proud bearing and 
stately figure of the sergeant was wont 
to prey on the minds of the senators. 
They themselves wondered if they ever 
could attain to such, or if ever "Moz" 
should retire from the scene of activity 
whether the pillars of the state house 
could maintain their accustomed maj- 
esty, whether all dignity would hie hence 
to follow its genius to other courts, or 
to leave in sorrow the halls its master 
knew no more. 

"That will be about enough," as 
Moz would say. The federal government now keeps him in good 
health and fancy vests for alleged work and the state has se- 
cured the services of a senate sergeant who leaves the dignity 
to the appearance of the august chamber in which the state's 
parliamentarians can always agree, — at least, on who shall pay 
for the drinks. There is never any split in the party on that 
question. On all others Sergeant Gardner has been ever ready 
to dip into the discussion and clear the floor at a moment's no- 
tice. For there have been times when it seemed his broad 
shoulders and his chunky arm would be far more effective than 
the president's gavel. 

Now and then a visitor in a creased coat and new socks 
strolled into the senate chamber with a blazing cigar between 
his fingers and a look of determined importance on his visage. 
As he jerked one lapel of his coat to call attention to himself 
the stout sergeant generally had the other lapel transfixed with 
a deathlike grip and the visitor threw out his cigar or went out 
with it. It wasn't Gardner's necktie nor his luscious locks that 
did the business. It was the formidable swing of his under jaw. 
That jaw was just built for trouble. And the tall man with the 
front and the disposition to get "sassy" did not need more than 
a glance at the short stocky figure and the steel blue eyes to realize 
that he was apt to capsize in the next squall unless he took in a 
reef. 

The discipline of the senate employes and habitues was never 
better. Gardner is not so much on parade, but 




48 




CASSIUS L, GLASGOW 

(SEXATOR.) 

President pro tempore by virtue of 
his own personal force, and the repre- 
sentative of Eaton and Barry counties 
in the upper house! The men who 
make the program in the upper house 
would have preferred some one a little 
less liberal. But there were several 
men in the upper house who are not in 
the habit of making programs and yet 
who thought that Glasgow would be 
about right for assistant presiding officer. 

In 1903 Glasgow showed that he had 
individuality. He decided that a 
limited amount of primary reform would 
do. He couldn't get support from 
either the radical primary reformers or 

the antis to carry his point. Nevertheless he budged not. On 
the final vote for or against the Colby bill he went with the 
antis and voted "no" after an able denunciation of what he 
regarded as a revolutionary measure. He was the logical 
moderator and the man to whom all factions looked as a central 
figure. He had antagonized no one, while his very sturdiness 
of character had attracted all. It was more because they feared 
he would snatch the honor away than from any hope of securing 
an ally in the chair that the antis trotted him out for the presi- 
dency in 1905. He had no opposition. 

In the frequent absence of Lieut. Gov. Maitland, Glasgow 
spent much of his time this session in the chair. His decisions 
were clean cut, to the point, and fair at all times and under all 
pressure. If he stumbled on a delicate point in parliamentary 
practice he was willing to admit his mistake and gracefully 
recede from his position. If he believed his ruling was right 
he was ready to stand or fall with it. Important general bills 
he watched closely. He never hesitated to call a colleague to 
the chair in order to participate in a fight on the floor. He 
patiently drafted a primary election bill that reached from 
Lansing to Nashville and back again, but did not sulk when 
sentiment crystallized on another measure. Again he was 
the moderator and handled negotiations in the senate by which 
the compromise primary bill was passed. 

The same fairness that made him president pro tem., the same 
spirit of conservative progress, the same hard fighting for a 
principle, the same powerful and persuasive oratory, — these 
are the germs of his tacit candidacy for lieutenant governor. 



^ 



49 




JOHN R, GORDON, AND OTHERS 

(representatives.) 

This souvenir volume was not origi- 
nated for the dissemination of scandals 
nor for the suppression of truth. Un- 
complimentary details of character may 
be omitted without any injustice to 
the purpose of the book, but matters 
of important history as far as the 
personnel of the legislature is con- 
cerned must find some slight mention 
here. It is for that reason that the 
existence of John R. Gordon of Mar- 
quette and some others must be noted. 
To most legislators Gordon proved 
himself a good fellow. He made a 
splendid fight for the appropriations 
for the Marquette normal school, and 
won because he had a good case. But early in the session he 
called public attention to himself and his immediate friends by 
entering a sphere of operations wherein activity has not re- 
dounded to the glory of representatives in times past. 

Gordon introduced bills to prevent the traffic in cigarettes, 
to prohibit the manufacture of slot machines, to stop the sale 
of renovated butter, and interested himself mightily in that 
sort of legislation. Under fire from the press he succeeded 
in passing the slot machine bill in the house as a matter of 
self protection, leaving its death to the senate. The senate, 
of course, killed it. 

Rep. Walker of Bay introduced a bill to tax sleeping cars, 
which he afterwards admitted was Gordon's bill. 

Rep. J. S. Monroe of Gogebic spent the early part of the 
session blocking Detroit's chances for municipal ownership of 
street railways. He was ably assisted by the attitude of Rep. 
Robinson of Detroit. Monroe later inaugurated a campaign 
for the purification of baking powder. 

Rep. Thomas of Huron said there were "no theaters to amount 
to anything" in his county, but he introduced a bill to close 
Sunday theaters and stop Sunday amusements. He claims 
this was his own production. 

Still another measure turned up to compel manufacturers 
of patent medicine to expose on the labels the ingredients of 
their nostrums and ruin their business. 

These bills and their first brothers are introduced every 
session and are seldom pushed. They are always aimed at 
wealthy and prosperous institutions. 



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50 



CAUGHT! 




The gentleman from 



receives a call from his wife. 




JOSEPH GREUSEL 

(represextative.) 

How can one criticise a brother? 
For year after year the retired rep- 
resentative of the Detroit Free Press 
occupied the same desk in the house 
of representatives that is now held 
1)y the scribe of this volume. The 
same enthusiasm, the same disgust, 
the same honor, the same defeat, the 
same grind of work have been ours 
through legislative sessions begun be- 
fore the one was old enough to push 
a pen and closing when the other be- 
gan to feel himself too old. 

Rep. Greusel has been very severely 
criticised for becoming an opponent 
of direct nominations. But he at least 
has the credit of apprising his constituents in due season of 
his change of heart and of winning his last election on an open, 
honorable platform. At no time has there been room for the 
intimation that Greusel deserted his flag or proved, as did 
some of his colleagues by their votes, that he had sailed under 
false colors. 

The great thing Greusel did for his constituents was to cinch 
for them $5,000 toward a statue of Gen. Macomb to be erected 
in front of the majestic county building of Wayne. His deep 
love for the history of Michigan and her great men burst forth 
in a quarter of an hour of splendid eloquence and appeal and 
the house cast but one vote against an appropriation which 
a ways and means committee had labored months in bringing 
forth, and then with no recommendation for passage. That 
was a great thing because it heralds an appreciation and cul- 
tivation of greatness. 

In the defeat of his resolution looking to municipal owner- 
ship of street railways, Mr. Greusel succumbed to the 
lobbyists of a powerful corporation and the cool-blooded 
support of the municipal administration of Detroit. In that 
defeat he showed his weakness as a legislator in his inaptitude 
for playing the game as it is played, — by the trading of votes, 
the support of disagreeable minor measures, and the turning 
of the many little quirks that go farther than logic in secur- 
ing help. 

His execution of humor was a feature of the session, — a 
lumbering, original style of humor that laughs comfortably 
as it waddles along, and gives a most pleasing effect. Public- 
spiritedness is his saving grace as it should be in all journalists. 



52 




MARTIN HANLON 

(representative.) 

"Father" Hanlon is Irish. He may 
deny that but nobody will believe him 
if he does. He was born in New York 
state, but old Erin couldn't have been 
very faraway. His face is too rotund, — 
his eye too roguish, — his smile too open. 
They call him father here because he 
in appearance at least, resembles so 
closely that jovial, self-sacrificing class 
of churchmen who never have children 
of their own — who make the whole world 
their children and their brethren and 
their own. Hanlon is that wa}" too. 
Some people have said he was English. 
Out at the capitol we would as readily 
believe him a dago. Nothing to it but Irish. 

Over in Williamston where Hanlon runs a drug store they 
tell some startling tales of energy and stick-to-it-ive-ness and 
heavy uphill fighting of this same goodnatured Irishman. His 
people were exceptionally poor. Hanlon laid hold of a hammer 
and a bellows and shod horses until he was 23. But the light 
was breaking, — had already broken. He left the blacksmith 
shop and plunged into the boy's work of acquiring a primary 
education. If his heart was as gay under that strain on strong 
manhood as it is today he didn't suffer much. Then he began 
to do those things that only strong, energetic men can do. And 
now he flaunts his independence before the memory of his 
vouthful poverty — and thanks himself and providence for 
what he has accomplished. 

He brings a very considerable supply of independence to 
the house of representatives. One day he presided in commit- 
tee of the whole. The boys decided to have some fun. They 
didn't have half as much as father did and they fooled away 
45 minutes of precious time in the bargain. 

A motion was made to reconsider a vote. "How did the 
mover vote" was demanded from an angry debater, eager to 
score against his adversary. 

"The chair doesn't know and the chair isn't going to inquire" 
was the reply. 

"I think we have been joking long enough" said another 
member. "let us quit our monkeying and get down to business." 

"And the chair is with the gentleman from Tuscola on that 
suggestion" came again from the presiding officer. The house 
quieted. "Father" Hanlon proceeded with the business almost 
unconscious of any attempt by the wags of the house to ruf- 
fle him. And "Father" Hanlon will be unruffled when a lot 
of people are dving of nervous prostration and disappointment. 

A good fighter with a good temper beats the devil in the 
first clinch. 




MICHAEL HARRIS 

(representative.) 

Michael Harris, a great, big, burly, 
bubbling, Irishman with Uncle Sam's 
certificate of citizenship was one of 
the men who wiped off the map in 
1904 the political countenance of Gid- 
eon T. Werline, the Alger-democrat of 
Menominee, the man who wouldn't 
ride on a pass and made himself a 
pest to those who did by his preach- 
ments of danger to the state. The 
friends of the railroads didn't gain 
much in defeating him. Harris looks 
altogether too good natured to make 
one believe he would refuse any good 
thing he didn't have to steal, but he 
came to the capitol with a campaign 
in his pocket for cheaper railroad fares in the upper penin- 
sula. Of course the same old thing happened to the cam- 
paign. Somebody cut a hole in the pocket and it leaked out. 
What became of it nobody knows. 

But the Irishman has demonstrated that he will play 
good ball once he learns how to pitch curves; and a man 
doesn't learn all the shoots in one session. The demonstra- 
tion was this: "Merciful Mike" Moriarty thought the circuit 
court stenographer in Harris's district ought to have more 
money. He accordingly rushed a bill through the senate 
boosting the salary. Harris believed the stenographer was 
getting enough at the old rate and said so. Knight of Dick- 
inson, Gordon of Marquette, and almost the entire upper 
peninsula delegation swooped down on Harris and Mike sat 
on the side line and cussed. It was no use. Harris insisted 
the increase was a needless expenditure of the taxpayer's 
money and said so very bluntly. It was no silken speech. 
But it routed the whole opposition. Perhaps some day Harris 
will work the same game on the railroad rate proposition. 

Harris did not loom up very large in the initiation of general 
legislation. In that way he did as little harm as possible and 
probably as much good as his compeers. He gave his con- 
stituents as nearly as he could what he thought they wanted 
and carried himself with a very communistic air generally for 
a man from the land of corporations and dividends. He went 
the whole length on primary election and seemed to be satis- 
fied with results. Since Michael left the ould sod a boy of 
14 in '66 he has been mining, lumbering, farming, politicking, 
running a store and raising a family. He ought to know about 
what's wanted, and he stands well enough with the boys to 
get it. 




JAMES G. HAYDEN 

(senator.) 

Thirty years ago Jim Hayden and Jim 
Rumer were farm laborers and pals. In 
the natural course of events they drifted 
away from each other, — Rumer to enter 
the medical profession and Hayden 
to fight his way to the top hand 
over hand. Last November Rumer 
sat back in his surgery to read about 
his own election to the senate. Then 
he noticed that Jim Hayden had been 
elected to the same senate. He laid 
his paper on his knee and sat back to 
think. "Jim Hayden? Sure, that must 
be my Jim." He was right. And the 
two old pals met for the first time in 30 
years in the senate chamber at Lansing. 

Hayden has been spinning the wheel of fortune since early 
childhood. He has labored on the railroad track and as a 
section hand as well as on the farm, until at last he has built 
up a real estate and insurance business and claimed success 
as his own. He has been treasurer of Cass, his native county. 
He is an active fraternity man and politician. He is quiet, re- 
tiring, reserved, with a kindly disposition, and an earnest 
interest in his legislative work. 

Somebody somewhere has told the storv of the three men 
who set out on life's journey together. One would be a poet 
and philosopher. He would win fame and have a career. His 
name would be on every lip. He died with half his verses 
unread. 

The second would be a great scientist. He, too, would win 
fame. He would solve the problem of creation, mayhap. He 
would delve and delve into the mysteries of the laboratory 
until at least his discoveries would be the envy of the learned 
and his name writ large among the great men of the world. 
He lived to see disappointment and lost hope grinning in on his 
helplessness; himself unheard of. 

The third went about the work that lay before him every 
day. And then he saw a woman. He loved her and married 
her. And soon he went about each day working to fill his 
basket with bread for the mother and her little ones. And each 
night he returned to them and each day set off again on his 
search. And once in the evening homeward bound, he came 
upon a beautiful temple, silent, white and wide, all of marble, 
and he wandered through it and among its columns, drinking 
its beauty and forgetting the weary toil of earning bread all 
day. He was welcomed by one in white robes. i\nd of him 
the wanderer asked what place it was. "This" was the answer 
"is the hall of fame. So few find it." 




HENRY T. HEALD 

(represextative.) 

Except when he received an urgent 
note summoning him to the galleries 
nobody loved a fight quite so well as 
Rep. Heald. Heald is a lawyer and 
there is a fight in Grand Rapids be- 
tween lawyers at every pause in the 
conversation. This young man never 
attained that enviable, unruffled de- 
meanor under fire without cultivation. 
And the fight seldom appealed to him 
as worth while unless it was too hope- 
less for others to lead it. 

Heald 's first exhibition of nerve was 
his forlorn attempt to delay, single- 
handed, action in the house on the 
bill ousting Secretary Baker from the 
state board of health. For a whole afternoon he kept the 
house in check assaulting every motion with renewed vigor, 
though aware that the jury had already decided the case. So 
logical and clear was his protest against the bill that he made 
his opponents listen and applaud. He quit only on the last 
roll call confident that nobody voted without knowing why 
and contented in that he had kept the administration very 
busy. 

"You won't get very far in the game at that rate" remarked 
a wise old owl who had been riding in the bandwagon until he 
had grown corns. 

"I don't care a damn whether I do or not" was the ready 
response with a smile attached. 

Heald's next performance was to lead the fight for the at- 
torney general against the Michigan Central lobby on the bill 
giving the state the right of investigating the company's books. 
When it looked as if the railroad was going to win that was 
the time Heald put on fresh steam. There were doings every 
day, Heald smiled a little more than usual, and the railroad 
lost. 

Then he took the first opportunity to smash the proposition 
giving the tax commission equalizing powers. He failed, left 
a motion to reconsider the vote by which the bill passed, and 
went home. There being no other fights in sight he stayed 
there. 

Heald is a bachelor of philosophy of the University of Mich- 
igan of 1898, and 29 years of age. When the session closed 
he was a bachelor de facto. But there were rumors. 



^ 



56 




ALBERT OSCAR HEINE 

(senator.) 

There was no other primary reformer 
in the whole legislature just like him. 
He wanted all the primary reform there 
was on earth or he wanted nothing. 
No half way measures for him. Nomi- 
nate the president of the United States 
by direct vote? Hell, yes. Nominate 
'em all by direct vote. You can't 
nominate too many that way for me. 
If I'm going out of business I'M like 
to see some other suckers come with 
me. I always did hate to be alone. 
Why don't you want to nominate all 
the state ticket by direct vote, Cook, 
and the judges? I thought you were a 
primary reform man. Those people 

aren't a damn bit better than we are. Let 'em all come under 
the same law. Makes me sick to hear a lot of four flushers 
sit around and say they're for primary reform and then flunk. 

Now it's just like this with me. By , I'll be 

primarv elections • , reform all the way 

Hell!!!^ 

Heine was a member of the senate elections committee and 
felt just about that way. He handed poor, lonesome Senator 
Cook a few sentiments of that kind during one committee meet- 
ing in which Cook was vainly trying to secure a favorable report 
on the compromise bill passed by the house. Heine could 
probably have made Cook take him seriously, if Chairman 
Baird had not interspersed several ejaculatory tehees and well 
nigh burst a blood vessel at the fun of it all. 

Baird and Heine were chums. Heine moved that the com- 
mittee arise on the ground that Cook wouldn't agree to report- 
ing out a good broad bill. 

"There ain't goin' to be no motion to adjourn right now" 
said Baird. 

"Mr. Chairman" insisted Heine, without gaining recognition. 
"You're a hell of a chairman." 

Whereupon both Baird and Heine laughed loud and long. 

All legislation of this kind was a very good joke to Heine. 
He had six months' enjoyment at the capitol. But there were 
two occasions when the joke went too far for him. One occasion 
was the passage by the house of the Ming bill abolishing trading 
stamps. The other was an attack of small pox that overtook 
him about the time he was sympathizing with the health officer 
of his own district in the latter's revolt against the small pox 
inspection work ordered by Secretary Baker of the state board 
of health. However, Heine lived to see the health officer win. 

Heine is a Hamburger, rare-done. 

57 




HENRY H. HERKIMER 

(representative.) 

If there is one thing the civil war 
of the sixties taught the world, it is 
the lesson that the units of one of the 
greatest armies ever mobilized under- 
stood in peace the value of the blood 
they had shed. Never in the memory 
of man did a host of such proportions 
so quietly disperse and return in all 
sincerity to the earning of a liveli- 
hood. The men of the brown button 
by that greatest of all achievements 
fired the republic with new life and set 
it going steadily to its destinv. 

It is as one of these that Rep. Her- 
kimer will be best appreciated. He has 
done nothing as a statesman that will 
attract especial notice. His days have been lived for the most 
part in pleasant places. He was born and bred in a good 
home amid the inspiration of the deeds of his honored pro- 
genitor, General Herkimer. When the trumpet sounded in 
'62 he entered Co. K, Fifth Michigan Cavalry and served until 
peace was assured. Then he returned to old Monroe county, 
where his father had taken up government land as early as 
1834, took to himself a wife, and since then has tilled the soil, 
— and been happy. He is nearly 63 now and carries his age 
as a citizen soldier should. 

As chairman of the committee on drainage he has this ses- 
sion succeeded in giving many counties the popular right of 
electing their drain commissioners and adjusted several mat- 
ters of important local interest in different parts of the state. 
His work has always appeared to be eminently satisfactory, 
though some of the water drinkers complain that he doesn't 
hate the saloon hatefully enough. After all that's Herki- 
mer's business. 

A good soldier, a good home maker, and a good citizen is 
a safe man to trust with public business. 




58 




THOMAS T. HIGGINS 

(representative.) 

Higgins is the dove. It was a flabby 
punster who ridiculed that appellation 
and averred that the full title of the 
gentleman from Cass was The Honor- 
able Tom Tit Higgins. That was be- 
cause the flabby person did not appre- 
ciate the significance of the situation. 

Higgins is the dove because he 
walked into Gov. Warner's office one 
day with a primary election bill in 
one hand, an olive branch in the other, 
and a mouthful of speech. They were 
strenuous days for the governor. His 
excellency was working for a platform 
primary bill. Higgins was working for 
the Higgins bill. And there are those 
who believe the Higgins bill was quite as good as the law that 
was ultimately enacted. 

The whole incident refutes the impression of some statesmen 
that Higgins was too funny to be taken seriously. Higgins 
was funny. He was also serious. He said so. No man con- 
nected with the state government of 1905 took himself more 
seriously. In old Bill Shakespeare's day they would dress 
Higgins in a cap and bells, put him in a king's court and give 
him a monopoly on jests. Then Higgins would say all the 
mean things he liked, and everybody would laugh except the 
fellow who was hit, and every time Higgins made a hit his 
reputation as a joke maker would grow and bloom. 

There is no kingly court in these days to start the Higginses 
on the high road to fame, but there is a legislature with a free- 
for-all entry. Now and then the legislature produces a Hig- 
gins, — a man who is unconsciously funnv, who utters wisdcm 
in syllables of metaphor, who pours forth indiscriminate sense 
and nonsense with a gesture and a pose that draws ecstatic 
attention. 

Never has the gentleman from Cass declined to entertain 
the house with his views on an}' subject that came before 
the representatives. How well will be remembered the calm 
recognition of McKav of Tuscola as "the gentleman from 
Michigan" after Uncle William had been baiting Higgins as 
chairman of the committee of the whole! And then there 
is that undying ebullition in the throes of a fight on a Michi- 
gan Central bill — "The railroads have done as much for me 
as the state has." And you, the initiated, knew him as a 
hero of "30 years' service." 



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59 



IV^SHI 






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H 




1 



JOHN W, HOLMES 

(represextative.) 

Gratiot county has the honor of having 
sent to the house of representatives for 
his third term one of the very best 
men that Michigan can boast, legis- 
latively speaking. Send him again, 
Gratiot; you're not likelv to improve 
on him. 

John W. Holmes is no genius. He 
doesn't look at all like biblical de- 
scriptions of the cherubim. He pre- 
fers side whiskers to wings for a few 
years at least. But he is honest, 
fearless, fair and square, with a rustic 
variety of common sense, with a reason- 
able amount of healthy grey matter 
for it to filter through, and with sufhcient 
energy to use it. Given all this with enough general information 
and reading to stock the cerebral plant, and what more can the 
state get for $3 a day and mileage? 

Holmes is best known this session as the author of the auto- 
mobile bill. On this measure his strength of purpose proved 
almost as fanatical as it does when he sees a chance to smash 
a saloon. He refused to concede any point of importance during 
the debate and, as a result, lost out on several clauses. He 
sincerely believes he is fulfilling a great mission on earth by 
soaking the man with the automobile. He has long since become 
accustomed to the trolley car and the steam engine. 

If Holmes had his way he would convert every saloon into 
a house of prayer and thanksgiving and give the drink mixer 
the job of chief psalmist. If the mixer refused to psalm, he 
would frazzle him, fry him "turned over," spice him up with 
a little brimstone and tobasco and offer him to the first Methodist, 
preacher as a fit and fulsome sacrifice. 

Not being able to get all his own way, Holmes is willing to 
make such laws as will gradually wipe the saloon man out of 
existence or convert him before the last great day. And it is 
benign charity that inspires all this. 

Holmes must not be taken for a crank. He is a man of quiet 
insistence and sane judgment as a rule and has the faculty of 
getting the votes and voting his own way even if he doesn't. 
He believes the people want direct nominations and will work 
for them, but he is willing to stick to his party whether it gives 
the people what they want or not. As a sober economist he 
is very valuable in a legislature where extravagance is apt to 
run riot. He is an oldish man now — 65 years. He hails from 
Alma. 



60 




GRANT M. HUDSON 

(representative.) 

Farmer's boy, student, Baptist min- 
ister, merchant, farmer, politician and 
anti-saloonist, — that is the Hfe of Rep. 
Hudson of Kalamazoo for 37 years. 
It is not the first time a man has left 
the pulpit for the forum, nor is it the 
first time the preacher has been truh' 
successful in politics, — successful in la}'- 
ing down a policy and fighting for it 
with majorities or against majorities. 
Any minister of the gospel who has in- 
tellect and energy and can hold his own 
against a modern christian congregation 
is qualified to tackle any proposition 
from Nero's bulls to Michigan politics. 

At the capitol in this year of grace 
Mr. Hudson has kept the hotel men, beer men, whisky men 
and free drinkers extremely busy. He can devise more methods 
for embarrassing the traffickers in strong drink than anybody 
who has challenged them for some sessions. He introduced 
some half-dozen bills for regulating and restricting the booze 
business from as many different angles and forced some fight- 
ing on near!}" all of them. Most important, of course, and 
most troublesome, was the measure extending the principle 
of local option to voting precincts, wards, townships, and 
municipalities. That was the cause of more than one excur- 
sion to Lansing by parties interested on both sides, the one 
armed with hymnals and the other with corkscrews. Hudson 
lost and lost well. He fought to the finish and didn't get 
bilious when he was turned down. Judging by the make up 
of the man he'll keep a lot of people busy again in 1907. You've 
heard of the puppy and the root. 

Hudson does not campaign like a prohibitionist, although 
the whisky men have been willing to vote him all kinds of 
names. Your prohibitionist would precipitate a revolution to 
carry his point. Hudson's is the much more effective policy 
of benevolent elimination. It was a matter of wonderment 
to the boys who sipped a highball after a hard day's session 
that Hudson should be such a good fellow and such a "crank." 
He "mixed" well without the assistance of the highball, he 
made friends, he spoke sanely and fearlessly, and classed as 
one of the real orators of the legislature. 

If the newspaper men had their way he wovild come back. 
Something would be doing all the time. 



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61 




WILLIAM E, IVORY 

(representative.) 

Hadley township, Lapeer county, is 
rock ribbed, unchangeable, immovable, 
susceptible to nothing but ancient re- 
publicanism. It has been claimed that 
Hadley was the headquarters and the 
bulwark of the republican "machine" 
of Lapeer county, and it is known that 
the democrats had some hope of help 
from Lapeer county in 1904. 

But Hadley elected its man to the 
legislature. There was something an- 
cient and rock ribbed about Rep. 
Ivory's attitude on primary reform; 
otherwise he was as liberal minded 
and as free with his vote as the inde- 
pendent free lances of Wayne. It was 
Ivory who was Double's partner in the introduction of the 
platform primary bill. But he lost the honor of recognition 
as a primary reform legislator when the senate wiped his name 
off the bill rather than couple it with that of Dickinson, who 
had deserted Israel and led the Philistines to victory. So 
bitter was the defeat of the leader's anointed that it was even 
intimated the jaw bone of an ass had figured in the fray. 

Ivory himself was not guilty of such an insinuation. He 
rubbed off the bumps and joined hands with the administra- 
tion in arranging a compromise to suit the majority. Loyal 
to his leaders, he denies that he was disloyal to his people. 
The record interrogations of the grange he answered in such 
a way as to leave him a free hand in primary election matters. 
If there was a misunderstanding he lays it up to the grange. 
On other important bills he did not show himself a tool. 

The Hadley blue is a fair sample of Michigan's prosperous 
yeomanry. He comes of a generation of farmers and tills the 
land his grandfather cleared in '39. He has played his part 
in the public affairs of his locality, served for years as a super- 
visor, is a member of several fraternal orders and one of the 
stand patters of the Lapeer republican committee. In his 
geniality he is almost boyish, in his view of life healthy and 
cheerful. 

"Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 

"Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!" 




62 




JAMES D, JEROME 

(representative.) 

Sensitivity should have no place in 
politics. The man who hesitates from 
fear of criticism is lost. It does not 
follow that callousness will always win. 
But elections and horse races being 
alike uncertain there would seem to lie 
but one maxim worth while for the 
man in the public eye, — " Be sure 
you're right; then go ahead." 

These generalizations are permissible 
in discussing the work and personality 
of Rep. Jerome of Detroit. He has 
always tried to be right. He has gen- 
erally tried to go ahead, but always 
fearful lest something may happen to 
place him in a wrong light. Misunder- 
standing and misconstruction of motive constitute part of 
the chances of the game. The scribe would respectfully recom- 
mend to him to take a look at a leaf of Senator Baird's book 
and "don' care a d ." Merely a look will be sufficient. 

Mr. Jerome, being small of stature, objects to the famil- 
iarity of "Jimmy" as a form of address. He should make 
that cognomen an asset. Senator Depew declared in Chicago 
last summer that Congressman Cannon should allow his name 
to go on the national ballot for vice president because the 
mere name "Uncle Joe" would be worth 10,000 votes in New 
York state. When a reporter hands a trained politician a 
familiar nickname or an oblique compliment the politician 
"buys" for the reporter. Imagine "Tony" Weiler of Detroit 
trying to carry an aldermanic election as Mr. Anthony Weiler! 

With a few of these minor amendments Mr. Jerome should 
be able to remain in politics for some time. His reputation 
has not been besmirched. Neither has the smell of fire passed 
on him. He worked like a little tiger for the Macomb mon- 
ument appropriation for Detroit and got it. He challenged 
the noodle clauses in the compromise primary election bill 
as it came from the senate and tried to knock the noodles 
out. He succeeded in the enactment of a law preventing the 
promiscuous sale of "dope" to unfortunate drug fiends. He 
stood stalwartly by the popular measures demanded by his 
metropolitan constituents. He did not spend his time try- 
ing to enact laws for the protection of frogs or fish worms. 
He has a charmingly intimate manner, is young and enthusi- 
astic and is as safe a representative as Detroit can trust with 
her interests against private aggression. 



63 




HARRY J, KANE 

(senator.) 

When Kane came down from Isabella 
the prediction had preceded him that 
he would play a faithful game of follow 
the leader. That prediction was made 
on the presumption that his political 
associates in Mt. Pleasant and the rest 
of his district were such as to keep him 
in the beaten path. If there was any 
truth in the prediction Kane succeeded 
in disguising it by a marked disposition 
to follow Gov. Warner as much as any 
other "leader" and by quietly prepar- 
ing to turn to the right or the left as he 
saw fit. 

The senator is a big, heavy, man, 
somewhat phlegmatic, but with a 
weather eye open all the time. He is of Irish extraction, has 
the Irish warmth and generous wile, and somehow is always 
found floating round on top. He was born in Canada in '60, 
cam3 to Michigan when 20 years old with a Canadian public 
school education and a strong arm, farmed for 10 years, and 
then broke into politics as the successful democratic candidate 
for sheriff. He held that office for two terms. Then he opened 
a store in Mt. Pleasant, joined the republican ranks, and again 
floated to the top. 

Kane had a goodly share of places on important committees, 
including the saline committee which made a state trip to 
Chicago to see whether Michigan salt was the victim of spurious 
imitations. He was by no means a noisy legislator, — never 
found it necessary to make any oratorical effort on the floor. 
He preferred to carry a roll call in his pocket and watch how 
the tally was going. 

With all his prosperity Kane is a bachelor, — a man who lives 
on the products produced by producers produced by others. 
It was a wise Indiana mayor who made himself famous in his 
own land by recommending an embargo on bachelors as far 
as public office is concerned and a special tax to offset the benefits 
they derive from society without returning the same in kind. 
Kane is onlv 45 vears old and very well preserved. He has 
promised to try. Sentence w411 be suspended for another fou'" 
vears. 





PATRICK HENRY KELLEY 

(SUPERIXTEXDEXT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.) 

Keep your eye on this Irishman. He 
broke into politics as an interim ap- 
pointee on the state board of education 
in 1 90 1, was elected to the same position 
in 1902, captured the state superin- 
tendency of public instruction in 1904 
in a walk, and is Rep. Simpson's candi- 
date for lieutenant governor for the 
campaign of 1906. His progress has 
been so easy to date that he has not 
yet announced himself as a candidate for 
the second place on the ticket. The 
idea of a lieutenant governor coming 
from Detroit may be a shock at first, 
but since the crippling of Russia and 
the taming of the steel trust on Panama 

prices, we can expect most anything in this young and forward 
century. 

"Pat" Kelley is a schoolmaster by trade, a lawyer by pro- 
fession and a politician by nature. At 22 years of age he held 
a life certificate from the state board of education after a course 
in the Indiana and Michigan normal schools. He was principal 
at Galien and Hartford. Being a Cass county boy he naturally 
fluttered around his own corner of the state before trusting his 
wings. Then he went to Mt. Pleasant and in '99 had finished 
five years there as superintendent of schools. In just one year 
he graduated from the University of Michigan as a lawyer 
and began to practice in Detroit. Then he found his calling 
as related above in the spring of 1901. 

Kellev's tirades against the democratic party and its candidate, 
tirades always clean, good-humored and legitimate, were one of 
the features of the last state campaign. A pretty good entertainer 
himself he enjoyed to the full the entertainment furnished by 
Woodbridge N. Ferris and never missed a chance to hear that 
strenuous gentleman ridicule the method and the system of 
the republican party. In a back bench in the gallery of a 
Cadillac auditorium one beautiful fall morning in 1904 "Pat" 
laughed until the tears started from his eyes and remained 
attentive until Ferris had fired the last shot. When the cam- 
paign closed he accorded to the chieftain of the defeated oppo- 
sition the same liberal treatment he would have expected under 
similar conditions. 

"Pat" Kellev is a good war crv. There is much in a name. 



i^ 



65 




LOUIS L, KELLEY 

(representative.) 

For earnest application and perform- 
ance of duty Rep. Kelley of Clare 
ranks with one hundred per cent in 
the good conduct table of the ses- 
sion. Kelley seems to have conceived 
the idea that he was paid by the state 
to do certain work and that it was up 
to him to do it to the best of his ability. 
While some other representatives sat 
out on the state capitol grass under 
the shade of a luxuriant state tree 
and grumbled about the bum wages 
they were paid, Kelley went to his 
desk and sawed wood. He knew he 
didn't have to take the job at three 
dollars "per" unless he wanted it and 
that he didn't have to keep it unless he wanted it. Being 
the oldest graduate of Michigan in the house it may be his 
modernity was o'er cast with some antiquated ideas on this 
point. 

It was for his bill prohibiting treating in alcoholic beverages, 
introduced and prosecuted in good faith and with the sincerest 
intent, that Mr. Kelley leaped into prominence. Had he 
dropped in to see the boys "along the route" he would not 
have introduced the bill. It's truly remarkable, — the number 
of men who campaign against the liquor behind a pair of green 
doors. Did the bill pass? 

A frivolous committee clerk stood gaping at Kelley's beard. 
The clerk was a female. "Ticklish?" mused an impudent 
reporter. "It's a wonder somebody wouldn't throw a few 
pebbles in there and scare out some meadow larks," the lady 
observed ignoring the first question. Mr. Kelley had the 
finest beard in the capitol, — one foot, ten inches, from tip 
to snout and no rail around it. Anybody could go in and 
see it. A few of the younger spawn who went down among 
some of those state-board-of-barbers-license-shops wish they 
could have grown one as long and kept it. Mr. Kelley has 
nothing against barbers but doesn't need them in his business. 
The Clare man is a graduate in medicine of 1875 and has 
served as a member of his board of supervisors for 15 years, 
having been chairman for several terms. Besides this he has 
had time to practice his profession continuously in Farwell 
and has been president of that village. He has ideas of his 
own and can tell vou whv. That alone is a recommendation. 



u^ 



66 




SAMUEL HARLAN KELLEY 

(representative.) 

The belligerent gentleman from Ber- 
rien has been in Michigan but little past 
a decade. And he's "from Missouri," 
that being his state by adoption and 
Indiana the state of his nativity. Surely 
political fighting must be tame here after 
enduring the martyrdom of republican- 
ism there. Kelley has also experi- 
enced the thrills of conducting a repub- 
lican newspaper in Scott City, Kansas, 
where he also practised law. 

He has been in touch with law and 
politics all his life. He attended the 
Missouri state university from 1878 to 
1880; was a clerk in the railway mail 
service in 1881, at 20 years of age; ad- 
judicator of claims in the United States treasury at Washing- 
ton in 1882; and chief clerk of the United States land office at 
AVakeeney, Kansas, in 1885. While in Washington he gradu- 
ated from the Columbian University Law School. To start 
with he was full of Scotch and Irish blood. 

With these antecedents Kelley's aggressive activity in the 
legislature of 1905 will be best appreciated. He is a choleric 
sort of man, oftener seen thinking intently or watching proceed- 
ings, hawk-like, than loitering in a card room or laughing at 
somebody's story. He was in earnest all the time, well- versed 
in the law and generally able to find something in it to his pur- 
pose. The judiciary committee had need of his collaboration 
on several occasions. He was one of the antis on the house 
elections committee, brought active support to the limited re- 
form bill endorsed by that committee, and assisted materially 
in planning the campaign for the hoped-for passage of that 
measure in the lower branch. His disappointment at defeat 
was most apparent, though he accepted the decision of the ma- 
jority with the best of grace. Kelley simply fought for the 
platform on which he stood in the campaign and lost. He had 
no whine to make, and didn't make it. 

Kelley's loyalty to party verges on the bitterest partisanship. 
Where southern blood runs high and where the republican mi- 
nority fights every day for existence they give and ask no quar- 
ter. The easy style of the comfortably safe republican in an 
all republican state does not appeal to him. He was born and 
reared in the shadow of other battlefields. He is always in his 
fighting clothes and sleeps less soundly from a day of enervating 
peace. 



67 




JAMES B. KNIGHT 

(representative.) 

"My wife tells me rm half Indian; 
I guess she's right." 

The gentleman from Dickinson has 
spent 55 years of a 5 5 -year life in 
northern Wisconsin and northern Mich- 
igan. It was northern Michigan that 
gave him his primary education and his 
livelihood nearly half a century ago. 
It is not recorded that upper Michi- 
gan took any resort business from 
Newport or the Atlantic watering places 
in those days, and if Mr. Knight con- 
sorted with Indians as far as would be 
natural, it is quite likely Mrs. Knight 
is right. 

"Whenever anything goes wrong and 
I go home out of sorts she sends me off to the woods" he told 
the scribe in one of those little non professional chats that men 
have now and then. "And I go." Right! Too bad a lot 
more of us cannot take to "the tall" on occasion. But then 
Knight always returns with his spleen shifted back into work- 
ing order. Such chances on protracted absences would be 
very risky for some women. 

After all God's out of doors is a pretty fair place to com- 
mune with oneself and overhaul the psychological and physi- 
ological machinery. There isn't much wrong with the man 
who can sniff the pungent fragrance of the northern forest, 
rest his eye on a flower by the trail, open his heart to the great 
blue dome beyond the tree tops, and contrast the immensity 
of his grand environment with the pettiness of his own wor- 
ries and troubles and disappointments. He is getting next 
to nature, which in the truest sense is getting next to God; 
and there is comfort. You don't expect anything small from 
such a man as that from spending his own money to spending 
the people's money. You expect him to stick to his friends 
and to play the game according to Ho3de. You will find his 
friends among the plutocrats and Coxey's army and you're 
never surprised which way he votes. 

Rep. Knight has been inspector of mines and commissioner 
of mineral statistics. He has finished his second term in the 
legislature and is a newspaper man, — one of the craft. And 
the craft can do no wrong. 




WILLARD A, KNIGHT 

(representative.) 

One of the refreshing incidents of 
legislative Hfe is a speech now and 
then by a man who says what he has 
to say and then stops. About the 
first thing the cub reporter is taught 
is to write "30" as soon as he has 
told his story. Consequently when one 
listens to prolixity, prosiness or profes- 
sional buncombe from men who are 
old enough to know better, he hails 
with joy the advent of a man who 
states his case and resumes his seat. 
One of the most effective speeches of 
the session was delivered by Willard 
A. Knight on the bill giving Battle 
Creek part of the sessions of the Cal- 
houn circuit court. It was about the only speech of moment 
that Knight delivered during the entire session and was a 
masterpiece in the way of vote getting. The secret of it all 
was that he said his piece and sat down. 

Willard A. Knight is one of the colts. He is still under 
30, a graduate in law of the U. of M., an active practitioner, 
a father, and a republican. That's a very good start; in fact 
good enough for more. His first term has been a profitable 
experiment for both him and his county. Of course he will 
learn more. 

Either his charity, or his party loyalty, prevents him from 
recognizing danger in the manoeuvers of some of his colleagues 
and checking it. He was told one day of a little piece of 
bad dealing on the part of a fellow republican, — something 
that looked like a snug rake off and was susceptible of proof. 
"Now do you really think so?" he asked of the man who 
suggested crooked work. (Then answering himself) "I don't 
know. I'd hate to think that." And straightwav he would 
not allow himself to think it. Very good gospel indeed; but 
very bum politics! It's up to the legislator to keep himself 
posted or he never will know the men w^ho are trying to throw 
banana peel under his own feet. 

Knight's own reputation was beyond suspicion. He was 
not very active or aggressive on the floor but he exercised 
intelligence, coupled with loyalty to his administration, and 
■could get as far on his popularity as any man in the house. 



^ 



69 




COLON C, LILLIE 

(deputy dairy and food commissioner.) 

Gov. Warner's appointment of Colon 
C. Lillie as deputy state dairy and 
food commissioner was a bright refuta- 
tion of the theory that nobody but poH- 
ticians need apply for positions under 
the state government even for the per- 
formance of technical work. The dep- 
uty is a specialist in the branch of the 
department over which he has full au- 
thority. Already the inspection of 
dairies and milk stations, the scoring 
tests of creamery products and the edu- 
cational work done by the department's 
men, have resulted in a marked advance 
in the dairy industry in some localities 
of the state. Several members of the 
house objected most vehemently to the passage of the bill 
broadening the scope of the department's operations and mak- 
ing room for the talent of a man of Lillie's special skill and train- 
ing. Already the improvement of general conditions has paci- 
fied, to a great extent, the kickers. 

That Lillie is no politician is proven by the rage that laid hold 
on him when it was intimated he was lobbying for the passage 
of the measure in order to give himself a more remunerative and 
comfortable berth than that of agent for a fertilizer concern. 
Needless to say, nobody made that statement to Lillie direct, 
for he has sharp dark eyes that snap ominously; and a square, 
heavy jaw; and a determined mouth; and a bulky shoulder and 
arm that look very good in the distance. Moreover, there was 
no possibility of his starving over on the Lake Michigan shore if 
Michigan never employed him. 

Lillie really can't enthuse until he hears the magic word "but- 
ter." "Cheese" will make him go some, but "butter" is the 
keynote of his whole being. He has special equipment in 
all kinds of agricultural lore, and has joined with Gov. Warner 
in one great, unanimous effort to bring Michigan somewhere 
nearer the place she should occupy in the manufacture of dairy 
products. 

"Every time we can show a man how to get one ounce more 
butter out of the same quantity of milk than he has been getting 
before," quoth Lillie, "we are doing something for him and 
something for Michigan. I believe we can demonstrate the 
value of this department as it is now organized by improved 
products and bv improved prices to the farmer and manufac- 
turer. Time will tell." 

Meantime Lillie is willing to do his wisest and let time tell. 



70 




remarked 



ARTHUR P. LOOMIS 

(governor's secretary.) 

"Anything doing, Mage?" 

"Not a thing. Governor's away." 

"Going to be?" 

"I don't know." 

"You're an old har. You just got 
a telegram this minute." 

Then the major sneaked the com- 
munication out of his hidden hand 
while he eyed the reporter with an eye 
full of interrogation marks and strategy. 
The reporter was on the trail. "Mage" 
knew it. The moment of silence that 
followed the colloquy was occupied by 
the revolutions of "Mage's" grey matter 
in an attempt to stall off publicity until 
his chief gave the word to make an 
announcement. Meantime he was still eveing the reporter 
and calling him vile names internally. 

"I understand that so-and-so is going to happen' 
the reporter knowingly. 

"That so?" remarked Mage. The balloon jib topsail of his 
left ear moved nervously. "Where did you hear that?" he 
asked interestedly. 

"Oh, I just heard it" replied the reporter nonchalantly as 
he puffed his cigar and started out of the room. 

"Well, say," put in the major significantly. The reporter 
halted. "Going to say anything about it?" 

"Sure" said the enterprising scribe. 

"I wouldn't if I were vou." 

"Why?" 

"Might be wrong." The reporter smiled conceitedly and 
moved on again. 

"Wait a minute" sang out the major. 

Landed! The reporter has him landed. The major tells 
the truth of the situation and drives the best bargain he can 
with regard to time of publication. The reporter smiles. 

Gov. Warner can trust his private secretary with anything 
on earth. This scene has been enacted time and again, fre- 
quentlv to the benefit of the administration. Major Loomis 
has had the training of two terms with Gov. Rich and handles 
numerous delicate affairs of state with the same shrewdness 
with which he dickers with reporters. He is respected by the 
men who have business in the executive ofifice and liked by 
them. He is not "long" on posing at pink teas in a uniform. 
He doesn't think he is handsome enough for that. And he 
isn't, is he? 



71 




GEORGE LORD 

(representative.) 

The house's speciaHst on banking 
and corporation technique and Rep. 
Eichhorn's entry for secretary of state 
in 1908! Lord holds about the same 
relative position among the lawmakers 
as a star in pure mathematics among 
scientists. His mates cooperate but 
have no desire to compete. Lord's 
name is attached to more bills regu- 
lating banks and corporations than 
would probably cover legislation en- 
acted on the same subjects by all the 
other members of the legislature put 
together. While the big show was in 
progress he was foxy enough to rig up 
a little side performance by which he 
didn't do the financial institution he is connected with in De- 
troit any harm. He's a poor politician who would refuse to 
help others for fear he would help himself. 

Lord's claim on the public service is the organization of 
the building and loan division of the department of state some 
10 years ago and his work as chief of that division and later 
as deputy secretary of state under Warner. No man in Mich- 
igan, it can be safely said, is better fitted by training and 
natural taste for the office of secretary, — but then he comes 
from Detroit and fitness is not the main requisite for attain- 
ing to any state office. 

As a politician Lord has his craftiness. He is a warm friend 
of Gov. Warner and stood by the administration in every 
corner, but always stopped before he ran counter to his under- 
standing with his Detroit constituents. His candidacy for 
the speakership last fall served nicely to stall off an}^ disturb- 
ance of the slate by the rise of a Wayne aspirant to fight Master 
of Kalamazoo for the chair. He deftly discerns the psycho- 
logical moment to let go or to take a fresh hold. His manip- 
ulation of the liquor situation did much to bring about no 
results. He is adroit. 

It is a fad among Americans, indeed among all white people 
who can talk United States-English, to push along the man 
who has "made himself" just for the pleasure of seeing how 
far he can get. Besides being a fad it is a form of expression 
of the genius of the nation. Mr. Lord was born in England 
40 years ago. The first 20 years of his life were not as bright 
as the last 20 which have been spent in Michigan, and which . 
he more directly controlled himself. Verbum sap. 



72 




NATHAN V. LOVELL 

(representative.) 

"What excuse has the gentleman to 
offer for being absent without leave?" 

"I was fighting the battles of 40 
years over again, and I hadn't qviite 
finished, Sir." 

"The gentleman is excused." There 
was a tear in the gentleman's eye. 

The participants in that touching 
little dialogue were Speaker Master 
and Rep. Lovell. The boys of the in- 
dustrial school at Lansing were giving 
a military review on the capitol grounds 
and the strains of the regimental music 
were floating through the windows. 
The other old soldiers applauded loudly 
at the summary action of the speaker 

who had not yet seen the light of day when these veterans 
were firing the guns. 

Lovell can feel as intensely now on local issues as he could 
on that great issue. Like most legislators he can feel — and 
act — more intensely in his second term than in his first. In 
the session of 1905 he was a primary election man of no hesi- 
tating tone. He was a tax commission reform man for the 
most reform he could get. He was against Gov. Warner on 
his bill for the state inspection of private banks and a gen- 
eral Indian scalper on every bill to which he was opposed. 

Early in the session Lovell and his colleague from Berrien, 
S. H. Kelley, furnished several days of vaudeville on the ap- 
pointment of a subordinate in the legislative postoffice. Kelley 
claimed the right and privilege of distinguishing republicans 
from democrats down his way by showing who voted for him 
and who didn't. Lovell even averred that a man might be a 
republican and still not vote for Kelley. The two gentlemen 
worked about as well together as two noses on one face. But 
Lovell wore the brown button. 

It's a tough job making a prohibitionist out of a man who 
has been glorified for shedding blood and playing the heartless 
game of war. Mr. Lovell in his advancing years enjoys a 
little whisky and water before dinner. With a face beaming 
pleasure and jo\- and satisfaction he re-referred to committee 
the Hudson precinct option bill, where that measure stayed. 
In pedro, politics and even pugilism Nate is still one of the 
bovs. 



!l/> 



73 




ALEXANDER MAITLAND 

(lieutexaxt-governor.) 

From Scotland, ye ken! Another moral 
of the wealth of poverty in this man's 
life! 

In 1904 he was in charge of the Cam- 
bria and Lillie mines, general manager 
of the mining department of the Re- 
publican Iron & Steel Co., and inter- 
ested in four national banks. 

In 1864 he was a plodding rodman in 
the survey of the Mineral branch of the 
Chicago & Northwestern. 

In 1844 he was born across the ocean 
and educated in Ayrshire. He came 
direct to Negaunee and has been there 
ever since. 

Those are the plain bald facts, stripped 
of all the color of romance and bared of the details of the struggle 
for place and wealth. Who shall attempt to describe the feelings 
of the voung Scotchman when first he assumed the chief magis- 
tracy of his adopted town, or the exultation that must have 
welled up over the loss of his old native land when he found 
himself climbing, climbing, to the head of his firm, to the state 
senate, and then to the second position in the state government? 
When Lieutenant Governor Maitland presides over the sen- 
ate during deliberations that are to none of his fancy he reveals 
some of the individuality that helped him win his single-handed 
fight for success in the stranger's land. He will not give in. 
His bitterness over the passage of the bill providing for direct 
nominations for governor and lieutenant governor burst forth 
in some caustic criticism of Gov. Warner for not standing pat 
against such a proposition. He had no patience with a com- 
promise which he considered a surrender. Besides, he was not 
having his own way. 

And then there was that other incident of the adjournment of 
the senate at a critical moment when the opponents of his cause 
were getting the upper hand. Maitland was not unfair in that 
case. He simply saw what he believed to be a majority of votes 
for adjournment. Likewise it is related of Admiral Nelson, 
when the British fleet was suffering in the historic assault on 
Copenhagen, and when one of his officers told him the flagship 
was signaling a withdrawal, the indomitable Nelson at once 
called the officer's attention to the fact that he was blind in the 
eye nearest the flagship. 

The salient feature of Maitland's character was there — indom- 
itability. His brand of humor is distinctly of the proverbial 
Scotch type, his brand of politics distinctly American. 



74 




CHARLES MANZELMANN 

(REPRESENTATIVE.) 

"It was the Dutch." While we are 
busy excluding orientals from the Amer- 
ican labor market we might congratu- 
late ourselves that we did not exclude 
all nationalities that might compete 
with our own labor. Here is a man, 
born in Stralzund, Germany, 44 years 
ago, came to Detroit when 11 years 
old, apprenticed as a broom maker and 
stuck to it, became a manufacturer of 
brooms when 20 3'ears old and built up 
one of the largest concerns of the kind 
in Michigan. And he is a labor union- 
ist. In fact he only broke into politics 
as a labor unionist and was a recog- 
nized representative of labor unionism 

in the session of 1905. He failed to pass his greatest labor 
union bill. 

And thereby hangs a tale. Manzelmann's proposition was 
the old union proposition of keeping state convicts out of the 
manufacture, as far as possible, of goods that would compete 
with union-made goods in the open markets, and of utilizing 
prison labor exclusively for the purpose of supplying the state 
and its political subdivisions with such goods as they need in 
the conduct of governmental business. The bill was opposed 
by the wardens of the prisons and the majority of the boards 
of control, also by the administration. 

Then came the fight for the direct nomination of governor 
and lieutenant governor as opposed to the bill restricting pri- 
mary elections to subdivisions of the state according to the 
platform of 1904. The administration saw itself going down 
to defeat. Manzelmann's vote was needed. But he came 
from Detroit. Something desperate must be done. Manzel- 
mann was informed that if he voted "right," that is for the 
administration bill, his convict labor proposition would prob- 
ably pass. 

Manzelmann voted wrong. In other words he refused the 
bait and let slip the opportunity of accomplishing the principal 
object of his election. There were times when it looked as 
if some foxy lobbyist had steered him awry, but he was gen- 
erally willing to fall in with the wishes of the majority of the 
Wayne delegation and register the will of his people. "It 
was the Dutch." 



t^ 



75 




FREDERICK C. MARTINDALE 

(senator.) 

"Sane and safe" must be any bill 
that passes muster with the senator from 
the first district of Wayne. Martindale 
enjoys a family connection and a poli- 
tical environment in Detroit that keeps 
him very closely in touch with the 
political pulse of the metropolis, and 
the wants and hopes of the local party 
leaders as well as the wants and hopes 
of his more remote constituents. There 
must be no hurry if his vote is to be 
secured. He must give each bill careful, 
prolonged consideration before pledg- 
ing his support for it. He was the 
recipient of some voluntary abuse be- 
cause he refused to cast a haphazard 
vote for the central counting board bill for Detroit. Develop- 
ments showed that the passage of the bill in the shape in which 
Martindale was asked to support it would have been a grievous 
mistake. 

Senator Martindale has the bearing and the manner and the 
style of a shrewd politician. He has the science of protecting 
his friends without leaving himself open to the charge of selfish- 
ness or favoritism. He has left undone some of those things 
which he might have done but he has done none of those 
things which he ought not to have done. And there is no kick 
for it. Where the demand of the people for a measure has 
been heard beyond the peradventure of a doubt Martindale 
was ready to give the people what they want. He is too con- 
servative to aid and abet expensive experiments in government 
and is willing to wait until the people speak emphatically. 
He has been acused of amending the civil service bill to the 
invalidation thereof. It is generally understood that if the 
civil service bill had been destined to become a law the Martin- 
dale amendment would not have nullified it. 

The committee assignments which were given to Senator 
Martindale indicate that he was not mistrusted by the folks 
who made up the committee lists. His normal conservatism 
satisfied them. He was, indeed, deserted by those same folks 
on several important measures, and took the desertion as a 
matter of course — not a whimper. His general policy he has 
expressed in these words, — "Friendship will get more than 
wrangling." 

He is a lawver and a naturalized Canadian. 



^/y 



76 



LAMENTED! 




Dr. Baker's retirement from the secretaryship of the state board 

of health brought grief to the many friends he 

had made in the office. 



77 




SHERIDAN F, MASTER 

(speaker.) 

This is about Speaker Master. His 
initials are Sheridan F., and some of 
the men who like to think thev know- 
people really well affect "Sherrv." 
But that has nothing to do with the 
honorable gentleman's thirst. A little 
plain "red eye" when he has a cold, 
and perhaps a little essence of hops for 
beverage is about as far as the speaker 
gets in Lansing. 

One thing everybody does know, — he 
likes to have his own way. He likes 
to have it even better than Former 
Speaker Carton of immortal, municipal 
losership memory. Carton always knew 
when to quit. Master does his cussedest 
and keeps right on doing it. Carton 
voted for the Colby primary election bill last session, not because 
he liked it, but because he saw the house going with it. Master 
openly lobbied against the Stone bill, this session's duplication 
of the' Colby bill, regardless of whether he was backing up against 
the sentiment of the house or not. It is for that unyielding 
method of operating that he has not a hold on as many members 
as Carton had. Personally he is admired by the representa- 
tives to the extent of a $230 diamond ring at least, but they 
do not look on him as their legislative papa. 

Master is intensely an "organization" man in taste, environ- 
ment, affihations. If he is ever elected circuit judge of Kala- 
mazoo he will take with him to the bench a supply of conserva- 
tism that would do credit to "Calumet & Hecla" Smith himself . 
He is an admirable fighter, and is faithful to his trust. Dis- 
cipline is the cardinal principle of all good machine politicians. 
"Get in line, vou pinhead, or we'll fill your seat so full of tacks 
you'll think you were born in a hardware factory." And so when 
"Deacon" Ellis appeared before the speaker at the opening 
of the session to talk about his committee assignments the 
Speaker has been reported as saying: "How do you expect 
to get any good committee appointments with those views?" 
Ellis was made forthwith a member of the committee on feeble 
minded. 

With due assumption of dignity as the presiding officer of 
a branch of the legislature of a great state, the speaker asserts 
indifference to press criticism. He reads the papers. He doesn't 
squeal very loudlv when he is hit, but he is quite as susceptible 
to flattery as most other humans. Self sufficiency is closely 
akin to moral courage. 



78 




WILLIS N. MILLS 

(senator.) 

One of the heavenly twins! The 
other was Mike. A more dignified 
comparison might say that he played 
Damon to Moriarty's Pythias. Brothers 
in affliction, brothers in politics and 
legislation, brothers in deviltry; except 
that Mike could not play billiards. 

Mills is a first termer. Before he 
came to Lansing he knew nothing of 
the game as it is played at the capitol. 
He soon sat in. One of his first moves 
was to help trim Doherty's comb. It 
seems the old managers decided that 
the Muskegon-Oceana primary election 
bill for that judicial circuit should not 
pass. Mills was not in the habit of 
climbing on the house tops to declare his love for direct nomina- 
tions, but he didn't like the idea of voting as one of a herd or 
of refusing a locality the legislation its representatives and 
senators asked. He voted for the bill. It passed. Next time 
Mill's vote was needed he was consulted. 

When Mills went after "Divine Right" Fuller in 1904 for the 
nomination from the thirtieth district, Fuller's friends thought 
there must be something wrong in Menominee and its associated 
counties. When Mills won out it was the general impression 
among the old senate leaders that a hideous outsider had broken 
into the ranks. Fuller had fought to the bitter end. The honor 
was something Mills could well forego. He went to Fuller. 
He offered him his support and his withdrawal from the race 
after he was sure the fight for the nomination was won, and 
Fuller had given up. Fuller never was the man to make himself 
an object of pity and manfully declined. Mills came to Lansing, 
proved himself as game as his predecessor, and in short "made 
good." He displayed the same conservatism and the same 
respect for property with the same fearlessness and the same 
challenge to man or devil to frighten him out of his course. 

On the railroad pass question Mills has an idea. It is this, — 
"No man is expected to come to Lansing for three day's work 
each week and allow his own business to go to pot. Living as 
far awav as I do it would take up more than my whole per 
diem to pay my railroad fare alone." Mills says he is ready 
to make a fight for the long agitated reduction of upper penin- 
sula fares as soon as he gets a favorable opportunity. 

News Item. — En route from Lansing to Menominee after 
adjournment Senator Mills received a telegram apprising him 
of the arrival of a brand new member of his family. 



79 




FRED R, MING 

(representative.) 

Mr. Ming eschews cigarettes and 
worships horse radish. He would make 
hazing a crime but enjoys mauHng a 
colleague like a college freshman. He 
doesn't smoke, but loves to fight. 
These are little compensations nature 
has made for a man who is as muscular 
as an ox and who regards himself as 
a corrective agent for social evils sus- 
ceptible to the laws of manhood. He 
was born at Rochester, N. Y., 40 years 
ago, is of German extraction, was 
educated in Toronto and Belleville, 
Ont., and has lived in Michigan for 
25 years. He has been a veterinary 
student, and a school teacher, chief of 
police of Cheboygan for three years, assisted in organizing the 
fire department there and has been sheriff of Cheboygan county 
for six years, which bailiwick he now represents in the lower 
house for the first time. 

It was Ming who introduced, and almost induced the house 
to pass, the bill to punish wife beaters with the lash. It was 
the old prejudice against corporal punishment in Michigan, 
rather than the demerits of the bill, that defeated it. The tale 
will bear repeating, — and it is vouched for, — of an habitual 
drunkard up in Cheboygan, who was in the habit of pummel- 
ling his old woman until she was about ready for the morgue. 
There seemed to be no way of stopping the performance as 
the spouse would not prosecute. Finally Ming served notice 
on the culprit that the next time he licked the lady there would 
be an overflow meeting. Sure enough the next jag meant 
another thrashing for the one in skirts. Ming called when 
the jag had worn off and induced the jagger to strike him. 
That woman has not been thrashed since. 

Going home by train one day from Lansing a common tough 
was making life unbearable for a lady passenger. Ming ad- 
vised the tough to "cut it out." The tough wanted to see 
"the sucker" that could make him. When Ming got through 
the tough was a sight. 

Ming's hazing bill went the way of his wife-beater's bill, 
but his measure prohibiting traffic in cigarettes in Michigan 
was lost in the senate only after some manipulations that 
Ming characterizes as worse than questionable. He did, how- 
ever, twist the tail of the trading stamp industry, and make a 
fight for the poorer fishermen that is sure to net them better 
consideration and concessions in the future. 



80 




ORLANDO C. MOFFATT 

(senator.) 

What peace was there, my country- 
men! What everlasting peace and com- 
posure and infinite digestion and comfort 
and good cigars! What a joy in smiHng, 
not too broadly nor too loudly, but oh! 
so placidly, so gently, like the 
easy bending of the limpid brook or 
the bowing of the swaying willow kissed 
by the evening breeze. Time? Time 
for all things. Time to burn. There 
is no hurry under the sun. There is 
no excitement. Only peace and com- 
posure and infinite digestion. 

In good faith it might have been in- 
digestion, but that would hardly have 
produced such a satisfied demeanor. 

Truly Orlando C. Moffatt is an abstract man. It is his business 
to abstract. It has become a habit. Forty years ago Moffatt 
was born in Lyons, later going to Northport with his people 
and subsequently to Traverse City. He cut his school course 
short to learn banking and was on the staff of the Old National 
Bank in Grand Rapids. Later he purchased the abstract 
books of Traverse county and removed to Traverse City. He 
has been registrar of deeds and has held other local offices. 
This is his second term in the state senate. 

For all his apparent indifference and quietude. Senator 
Moffatt interests himself deeply in the work that is assigned 
him. As chairman of the committee on fisheries he is partially 
responsible for the condition of Michigan's valuable hatcheries 
for the next two years. While assisting in carrying out the 
policy of the administration for moderate expenditures of 
money he has not been parsimonious and has endeavored, 
probably succeeded, in coming as near to satisfying the fish 
enthusiasts as any enthusiast can be satisfied without getting 
everything he asks. One of his thankless tasks was to assist 
in pruning other appropriations asked by three state institu- 
tions without any more rioting than was inevitable, — namely 
the grants for the agricultural college, the home for the feeble 
minded, and for the horticultural interests. He was also chair- 
man of the entertaining committee on public claims and accounts. 

In general legislation Senator Moffatt tried to please his 
constituents and to earn his per diem by faithful attention to 
business. 



(B:^^ 



81 




JAMES S, MONROE 

(representative.) 

This is "Stonev." Nuffsed. 



"To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often He too deep for tears." 

■ — Wordsworth on Immortahty 




r 



82 




GEORGE W, MOORE 

(state banking commissioner.) 

The shadow of Atwood — and yet 
More; a man of rare insight, of dehcate 
strategy, of cautious advance, quiet, 
good-natured, thoughtful and always on 
guard; a former state senator of wide 
renown. 

It is not very many weeks since the 
banking commissioner frankly stated to 
the scribe of this sketch that he rather 
preferred direct nominations for gover- 
nor and lieutenant-governor to any 
other form or st3de of primary elections. 
Why? First of all, to preserve the lo- 
cal county and city organizations which 
might be weakened by direct nomina- 
tions in local affairs and the full value 
of which Mr. Moore keenly appreciates. 

Secondly, to enact some law that would mollify the radicals 
rather than irritate them and at the same time conserve the in- 
terests of the conservatives. There was political wisdom in his 
premises and his conclusion, though the banking commissioner 
was not over-strenuous in his support of this program. He got 
together with Atwood and talked it over. For they twain work 
with one accord — "one faith, one hope, one baptism." 

Having had considerable experience in private life as a banker 
Mr. Moore has been able to bring the training of an expert to the 
management of the state banking department. The sensitivity 
of the institutions under his direction has been carefully ob- 
served, while the state has been enabled to insist on the execu- 
tion of the law with a minimum of damaging publicity or profit- 
killing scandals. He was one of the prime movers in the legis- 
lative campaign to place private banks under the supervision of 
the state and afford the same guarantees to the depositors in 
private fiduciary institutions that safeguard the depositor in the 
state bank. This time he lost. 

When the banking commissioner rests the weight of his body 
on one foot, rams two hands to the elbows into two front pants 
pockets, and deliberately says "Now is it?" he is figuring very 
closely. Figuring is part of his business, from the balances of a 
bank to the logical appointment for the next vacancy in St. 
Clair county. The interests of the republican party in Michigan 
demand that the republican club in each county shall include 
all the members of that party in so far as is compatible with 
standing pat, and that the plums shall be a blessing and a com- 
fort, not a curse in the pursuit of party happiness. 



J& 



83 




JOSEPH B, MOORE 

(chief justice.) 

When one first meets Chief Justice 
Moore of the supreme court of Michigan 
he shakes hands with a kindly, gentle 
old man, picturesquely grey. The sec- 
ond meeting inspires a deeper interest 
— a desire to know something about the 
machinery concealed by the gentle, 
attractive exterior. Mature acquaint- 
ance brings into view other shades, 
other lights, intensifies the interest. 
It is still the gentle, kindly man one 
sees; but glowing now in all the fulness 
of dignity, learning and wisdom. 

The path by which Justice Moore has 
come to his high place is the path 
which only men can tread. He has 
attained this full citizenship by toil, by hardship, by intellectual 
labor, by taking his part in the affairs of his fellows — and not 
flinching. For the greater part of five years his hands were 
hacked in his father's saw mill. His rest at night was in the 
labyrinth of Blackstone, borrowed from a friendly neighbor. 
His reward has been what his stubborn efforts earned. 

Once upon a time Justice Moore was a politician — and a very 
good one too. In the early '70's he was prosecuting attorney 
of Lapeer county, and during that period also held the office of 
mayor of Lapeer city. 

In the face of dangerous petty prejudice and jealousy he was 
able to hold the confidence of his constituents and go still higher 
up until he presided for two terms as circuit judge of Oakland 
and Lapeer. There, at close range, he learned the motives that 
make up human nature and opened the eternal book that 
schooled him in the needs and wants and rights of his race. 

His academic education was received at Hillsdale after a 
tedious experience in teaching in the local schools. He drew 
cuts with his two brothers for enlistment in the civil war and 
won but was rejected by the army surgeons. 

Up to the time that he was elected to the supreme bench 
Moore had not missed a state convention in 20 years and made 
the nominating speeches for Gov. Rich. He still studies politics 
closely, but that study is now more one of ethics than of practice. 
Next January he begins his second term on the supreme court 
bench. 

The chief justice is lacking in freakishness or eccentricities. 
His one hobby is flowers. He never tires of them. He loves 
them all from the earliest spring blossom to the fall chrysan- 
themum. His home is the sweetest and the simplest, where 
his life's partner, daughter of Jasper Bentley, formerly of Lapeer, 
still lives. They have no children. 

84 




MICHAEL H, MORIARTY 

(senator.) 

"Merciful Mike," apologist for con- 
victs, friend of the friendless, candidate 
for lieutenant governor! To him the 
board of pardons dwells in a sacred 
edifice, a monument to strict justice as 
well as mercy, a means of grace to men 
more unfortunate than criminal. The 
great hearted Moriarty would prove all 
men innocent and jails a public extrav- 
agance. Incarceration he regards as a 
social as well as an economic waste. He 
would work a Tolstoic change in men's 
hearts. He would have no need of 
man hunts by men. He would spend 
millions, if he had them, to make the 
state prisons havens of rest and comfort. 
He would do anything except what is done. 

But fate has limited his operations to the securing of paroles 
and pardons wherever possible. More than one noted convict 
can testifiy to his charity. As a former member of the boards 
of control of the Marquette and Detroit penal institutions, 
as a former prosecuting attorney, and as a lawyer, he declared 
in the senate — "Mr. President, half the men who are serving 
out sentences in our state prisons today are not guilty of the 
crime for which they have been convicted." 

Moriarty is one of the men who do things in the legislature. 
He is chairman of the railroad committee, — see? He is a mem- 
ber of the cities and villages committee. (He would be a good 
man for Detroit to know.) He is one of the directors of the 
senate morgue, Cropsey chairman, and has a voice in the im- 
portant councils at which things are "lined up." Any time 
you want a little side trip in a hurry go to "Mike" and he will 
fix you up. What is more, he won't care who knows it. He 
has made enemies as well as friends through the performance 
of these little favors. He realizes that and is ready to accept 
the consequences, good, bad, or indifferent. "I am going to 
do it this way" is his method. And he does it that way. 

Moriarty is a bachelor with long, heavy, greyish hair. His 
active days have been spent in Crystal Falls, Iron county, 
though he is a native of Hudson, Mich., and even claims to be 
of Irish parentage. A bird and a bottle have cheered him on 
his way but not satisfied him. "Better than all the political 
honor and experience at the capitol are the friendships we 
make," is his idea of legislative life. And then there is this 
oft repeated regret of his, — "I do wish I had a little home. 
But it's too late." 



85 




JAMES L, MORRICE 

(representative.) 

In every legislature there is a more 
or less strained relation between the 
farmer element in the house and the men 
from the urban districts. In large 
measure that is true of the house of 
1905. This condition is due primarily 
to one party's misunderstanding of the 
motives of the other. The farmers 
resent the amendment or correction of 
their bills by men from the cities vv^ho 
have no direct interest in them, and 
the men from the cities date a fresh 
grouch from every hour the farmers fail 
to give them just what they want in the 
way of local legislation. 

It is for these reasons that James 
L. Morrice of Emmet, than whom no modester man lives, looms 
up as one among his own farmer class of lawmakers as the acme 
of self possession, restraint and cool headedness under trying 
circumstances. Morrice votes as he darn pleases. He was 
the only member of the house to vote against the Double- 
Ivory-Dickinson bill as it originally passed the house, with 
02 voting against him. He didn't believe the bill was just what 
it should be and said that the house could improve it by holding 
it for further consideration. His judgment was later proven 
correct. His record and reputation as a friend of direct nomi- 
nations is unimpeachable. 

Perhaps it is Morrice's judgment, perhaps it is his common 
sense, perhaps it is his modesty, but he is not noted for the 
number of bills he has introduced. What his constituents want 
they can get from Morrice. What they don't want don't worry 
hini. He is not a schemer nor a strategist. He is too ingenuous, 
too straight to get himself around a big curve in a hurry. There- 
fore Morrice will never be a great leader. He has none of the 
elements of great leadership, — less fitted for that sort of thing 
than the average legislator. He is burdened by an old fashioned 
idea of doing the duty that lies before him, and doing it quietly 
and well. Under a thriving plutocracy he is not the man who 
will ever reach the United States senate or be governor or hardly 
even a congressman. Plain living, thrift and simple working 
will never make a man a hero in this generation, for this is the 
age of dress parades. 

But Michigan can't get the services of too many public men 
with the Morrice brand of conscience and economy. 

The waters of Little Traverse bay and the skies and hills of 
old Emmet must produce some more Morrices if this one is to 
be kept at home. 




JOHN J. McCarthy 

(REPRESENTATIVE.) 

It is just 20 years since Rep. Mc- 
Carthy of Arenac broke into politics 
and he hkes it so well he has been 
spoken of as Doherty's successor in 
the senate, as candidate for circuit 
judge at the first opening, and as 
ready for another whirl at the legis- 
lature to succeed Master as speaker in 
case the gentleman from Kalamazoo 
does not come back. McCarthy has 
spent his 47 years in Michigan. He 
started in Gratiot county and, after 
admission to the bar in 1SS4, per- 
ambulated in this way — 

Circuit court commissioner, Gratiot 
county, 1885-86; prosecuting attorney, 

Oscoda county, 1889-92; prosecuting attorney, Arenac county, 
1899-00; State representative, Arenac, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona 
1903-06. 

Mr. McCarthy is nothing, if not vigorous. It makes no dif- 
ference whether McCarthy is asking for the change of the name 
of John Do to John Done or for something new in the system 
of taxation, he works and talks with the same zeal. For the 
chairman of the judiciary committee, who must be on his feet 
so much, this lack of proportion is not altogether an advantage. 
The vigor is apt to become common. But thus far McCarthy 
has been able to have as good a percentage of his own way as 
his colleagues. 

He's a big burly man with a sloping anterior and a clear 
eye, lots of vim, and a pretty good following in the house. 
It is understood that he is to have the support of the organi- 
zation that made Master speaker, in case the Kalamazoo man 
feels he has had enough. There has been no complaint against 
his attitude in politics or legislation. While regarded as a 
stand-patter he has steered a pretty fair middle-of-the-road 
course. Perhaps some day he may be able to secure the ex- 
emption of credits or mortgages from taxation. He was one 
of the fathers of the measure passed by the house this session 
exempting the latter and left to die in the senate. 
McCarthy is always in prime shape for a fight. 




87 




WILLIAM McKAY 

(representative.) 

Riding in a train, Lansing-bound, one 
day, "Uncle William" told this story 
— "Some years ago I went home. I 
tramped through old Ayrshire looking 
up a friend's friend. It was a bright 
summer afternoon. In the distance I 
saw the same old house I knew as a 
boy; and beside it the same old tree; 
and under the tree some boys playing 
the same old game of marbles we 
played on the same spot 50 years ago. 
Of course I stopped and dreamed for 
a moment. Then I heard in a cry — 
'Haud a wee, Geordie. Come awa' 
back an' knuckle doon.' The tears 
began to come and I moved on. How 
often I have shouted that at my own playmates!" Then 
"Uncle William" looked out of the window and saw it all 
again. And again the tears began to show. 

The heart that beats warm and fast at 65 for the memories 
of home and childhood is not the heart of an unmanly man. 
"I've gone through life making the best of things and trying 
to be square and I'm not going to learn anything else now" 
is one of his observations. "Uncle William's" constituents 
seem to know that. They have sent him to the legislature 
in '89, '99, '01, and '05. He'll undoubtedly come again if he 
wants to come. There has been no contributor to the general 
joy and hilarity of 1905 to compare with him. His spontaneous 
witticisms, his canny Scotch methods, have made him the 
entertainer of the legislature par excellence. There was always 
silence when "Uncle William" rose to speak, as he did in mod- 
eration, for he either had a red hot hand-out for some victim 
on the other side or a straight point to make that meant some- 
thing. His function was largely that of the balance wheel 
in debate. 

It was at Almont, Lapeer county, where he first brushed 
the dust of the old sod off his feet at the age of 14, climbed 
into an ox cart, and became a Yankee. In '76 he moved to 
Tuscola county, which he now represents. He has been farmer,, 
supervisor, and sheriff when he was not at the legislature and 
is now watching some snug little interests in local banks. Aye, 
that's the thrift for ye; an' an oonce of whusky afore bed is 
a vera guid thing, — but tak' it in twa oonces o' water. 
"Uncle William" McKay is the grand old man of 1905. 



88 




MALCOLM ]. McLEOD 

(state labor commissioner.) 

Everybody remembers what a time 
McLeod had getting the appointment. 
He had been a faithful deputy under 
Commissioner Griswold and came for- 
ward with the rather novel proposition 
that he was entitled to be commissioner 
as a reward and a promotion for duty 
performed and services well rendered. 
The proposition was novel because no 
political organization can afford to scat- 
ter its prizes among men whom it be- 
lieves have limited political capacity — 
that is, who cannot deliver the goods. 
Then an avalanche of labor union peti- 
tions assured the administration that 
McLeod had political capacity to be 
reckoned with, and he got the appointment. 

It might have been feared that a labor union appointee would 
have irritated the employing interests in his advocacy of the 
union cause. Nothing of the kind has happened. McLeod has 
been working to keep all classes employed and quiet, and to that 
end.' succeeded in securing the location of two free employment 
bureaus in Grand Rapids and Detroit by a special act of the 
legislature. Where men are employed and decently remuner- 
ated there is a minimum of unrest. If the commissioner's in- 
tentions are an earnest of success the state has to thank him to 
some extent at least for stability in the labor market, and for a 
rigid inspection of factories that will assure the unions of the 
enforcement of the law and forestall trouble for the employers. 

Ambition has driven McLeod into a political position. He is 
a native of Canada, and like so many men from the dominion, 
has taken an active part in American politics as far as he 
could from the day he first landed at the ferry dock. McLeod 
has been a candidate for the nomination to the mayoralty of 
Detroit and for auditor general of Michigan. He has taken 
what he has been able to capture and may possibly be hoping 
for more, though it is doubtful whether he will chase the fairy 
butterflv further. He is blessed with a patient, long-suffering 
temper, an equanimity that apparently nothing disturbs, and 
a personality that inspires confidence. Being in touch with 
the needs of all classes his administration should be beneficial 
to Michigan at large. 



&/> 



89 




WILLIAM F. NANK 

(representative.) 

The Hercules of the house was born 
in Schoenhousen, Germany, just about 
38 years before the day he sits down 
to read himself here as others see him. 
He stands something under eight feet 
and weighs about 800 pounds in slaps 
on the back. There was no more 
inspiring sight in i-epresentative hall 
than Nank of Mt. Clemens and Ming of 
Cheboygan, bumping the posteriors of 
some of the alleged heavyweights against 
the bar of the house on the last day 
of the session, or to watch the German 
giant doing an Indian club exercise 
with a handful of middle weights who 
had set out to get revenge. 
And what a row there was when Rep. Hudson proposed to 
take away from the cross roads grocery the right of retailing 
liquid hops across the counter! The gleam in his eye said 
plainly that we Germans were being deprived of our rights. 
The bill did not pass. Now Nank is one of the new police 
commissioners of Mt. Clemens and can see that his vicinity 
does not furnish material for another campaign of the kind 
from the anti-saloon men. 

In politics Nank has won the distinction of being the first 
republican sherifif of Macomb county between the years 1880 
and 1894, the year in which he was elected to that ofhce. He 
was reelected in 1896. He had previously turned over the 
democratic township of Sterling on the township clerkship. 
It was as a farm hand and brickyard workman that he got 
the start that has helped him to an interest in one of the local 
banks and a livery business. 

On the ways and means committee during the session he did 
much to steer the legislature toward a moderate expenditure 
of money, even subjecting himself to some hard names 
because of his opposition to the appropriation for a Macomb 
monument in Detroit. But the daughters of 18 12 in Macomb 
county called him off and Detroit has long since forgiven him. 
Rep. Nank is rock bottom. 




90 




FRANK S. NEAL 

(legislative clerk.) 

Long, lean, angular; admiring his 
chief almost to hero-worship ; prefering 
friendliness to hate; taking pleasure in 
acts of kindness ; sure that there is noth- 
ing better on earth than the republican 
party and the North ville Record. When 
Neal is not digging through tangled acts 
of the legislature to digest them for his 
chief and prevent the signing of anv 
measure that would make the legisla- 
ture or the party ridiculous, he is mak- 
ing change over the counter of the Rec- 
ord. He makes "the help" do the work 
and makes the paper pay him. He was 
chairman of the ways and means com- 
mittee of the house in 1903 and was 

particularly well-posted on state expenditures. In that ca- 
pacitv he saved the state a substantial sum of money annually 
bv instituting some simple changes in the methods of handling 
appropriations. In 1905, as the governor's special legislative 
clerk, he has saved Michigan much trouble and perhaps some 
money by his keen inspection of every measure that came before 
the governor for his signature. His reward has been an ap- 
pointment to the state board of mediation and arbitration — an 
institution which has been so much of a joke in the past as to 
admit of improvement by a man who knows how. 

Neal belongs to that conclave of rural editors who did so much 
toward saving the party ticket in 1904 — men with a small, com- 
pact, limited constituency, but with a faculty of knowing how to 
work it and an intimacy with their readers that prevented the 
metropolitan journals from throwing victory to the other side. 
He is a mild mannered man, disliking collisions, fond of pros- 
perity, and getting it. He is always on the inside and the aider 
and abettor of Major Loomis in the art of fooling the reporters 
until a trick is turned. He plays that part of the game very 
gently and nicely, however. He knows when to lie to the news- 
paper man and when the newspaper man is going to know he is 
lying — "lying," of course, being merely a reporter's definition of 
executive diplomacy or refusal to affirm or confirm. Neal en- 
joyed it and the reporter didn't mind. Anything for peace in 
the familv. 




91 




DAVID M, NOTTINGHAM 

(representative.) 

Dr. Nottingham is the man who 
thought there was a chance of Master's 
not being elected speaker. The doctor 
Hves in Lansing, where, says the old 
gossip, there are so many discharged 
and disgruntled department clerks that 
the independents look dangerous every 
little while. Not being on the inside 
of the organization's program the doc- 
tor didn't see the handwriting on the 
wall, much less read it. It is unfair 
to charge the genial gentleman from 
Ingham with calling that de hixe con- 
ference before the session opened for 
the purpose of boosting himself for 
speaker. He heard so many people 
kicking about having things all fixed for them that he sup- 
posed they meant it. However, the cards were stacked as 
the doctor learned shortly afterward. The point is that the 
doctor didn't sulk; but just sat down and made the best of 
it; and proved himself a good fellow for the rest of the session. 
When Nottingham is not fixing up the medical law he is issu- 
ing general invitations to members of the house to make them- 
selves at home in Lansing and see what a good town it is. 

An odd little incident, never related in public at least, must 
be narrated here. An important bill was before the house. 
Nottingham was against it, but not enthusiastically so. A 
familiar lobbyist got at Nottingham through a mutual friend 
and the friend assured the lobbyist Nottingham was alright. 
It later occurred to Nottingham to inquire how his friend 
wanted him to vote. "Vote for the bill, of course," replied 
the friend. Nottingham did so. Then the lobbyist wanted 
to know what was the matter with Nottingham. "Didn't 
he vote for the bill.'"' asked the friend. "Certainly he voted 
for the bill" replied the lobbyist. "That's what I'm kicking 
about? If you had let him alone he would have voted right 
without any coaxing." The doctor's hands were clean, and 
he felt quite pleased with himself for having done something 
for friendship. 

Dr. Nottingham is another farmer's boy, an Indiana product 
with some French blood in his veins. He taught school and 
made harnesses before studying medicine in Chicago. He set 
up in Bronson, Branch county, and later went into Lansing, 
where he has been laboring on battered anatomies for over 20 
years. He always keeps in touch with public affairs, and has 
served his municipality in various capacities. He is a mem- 
ber of the board of control of the State Homeopathic Medical 
Society. 

92 




DANIEL B. OVIATT 

(representative.) 

This is the culprit who lay back and 
snored viciously the day Gov. Bliss 
unloaded his exaugural message. Mr. 
Oviatt later declared that he had never 
enjoyed one of Mr. Bliss's efforts so 
much. 

Fact is, Oviatt has earned a few extra 
naps. He has gyrated from the min- 
istry, to village assessor, to supervisor, 
to editor and publisher of the Alden 
Wave, to justice of the peace and to 
representative. They weren't handing 
out any soft things in the days when 
Oviatt started after an education, or 
if they were they didn't come his way. 
He's a New Yorker, born at Wells- 

ville, and so fond of his native state that he didn't stav long 
among us when he came to Michigan in '77. But he came 
back in '87 and here he is, with snow white hair and nearlv 
60 years behind him. 

Oviatt showed a marked improvement as a primarv reformer 
since the session of 1903. The storm had broken in the mean- 
time. He didn't want too much reform but he wanted the 
best that could be got as far as it went. It was the Antrim 
man who perpetrated the bill for the protection of fish worms 
and laughed for three days and 42 minutes at the fun of it. 

A chat with Oviatt was always refreshing. No man in the 
legislature worried so little or looked so comfortable at all 
times. He wasn't an aggressive joker, but if there was one 
thing he desired at all times and places it was a chance to laugh 
with a snooze thrown in. The debating he left to others to 
do until the protection of deer in his county came under fire. 
Then the dignity and importance of the subject brought him 
to his feet. He didn't fancy secrecy, was willing to show his 
hand, and was as ready to discuss his position on primary 
reform with the reporters as he was with the more timid mem- 
bers of the elections committee behind closed doors. 

"To sleep; to sleep; ay, perchance to dream." 




93 




ARCHIBALD J. PEEK 

(senator.) 

"Archie Peek is a good old soul 

Yes he is . ' ' 

The rest of the song was lost amid 
a clatter and a whoop and boisterous 
laughter. Senator Peek is one of those 
big, rollicking fat men, with a large 
voice and a large eye and a large ap- 
preciation of good fellows. He looks 
big enough to squash anyone who might 
annoy him and good natured enough to 
mollify anyone who had set out to. 
When the democrats of Washtenaw and 
Jackson had made up their minds that 
1904 was an auspicious year and brought 
out one of their fastest goers, the re- 
publicans turned to "Archie" Peek, 
and told him it was up to him. He managed to come out of 
a hot campaign with a little majority of nearly 3,000. This 
was his second appearance in the legislature, his first having 
been in '97. 

Peek was an alleged stand patter, but added several times 
to the list of surprises when he was expected to vote the way 
some of the older "boys" had reckoned for him. He is a friend 
of Congressman Townsend and carried the air of independent 
initiative that has surrounded the congressman in state and 
national affairs. If there is anything distasteful to him it is 
the shadow of imperiousness that sometimes gets the best of 
the habitual leader. One of his newspaper friends was bally- 
ragging him one day about his boss. "I want to tell you some- 
thing" announced Peek in a sonorous voice. "I don't care a 

d what he does nor what you print. You want to get that 

idea down pat right away." 

Peek is a New Yorker of Scotch extraction and just 51 years 
of age. His education he received in the high school at Jackson. 
And then he took to the farrrl with his parents. After he began 
to operate a farm of his own he went into politics with both 
feet and emerged with the shrievalty of Jackson county for two 
terms. Now he is running a bustling hack business in Jackson 
city and drives the political bandwagon himself. "Archie" 
is a large per cent of the party's rolling stock in his district. 




94 




ALVIN D, PETTIT 

(REPRESENTATIVE.) 

"A thorn in the flesh! Gall and 
wormwoodJ He is not one of us!" 
That is simply a paraphrase of the 
expression of a prominent office holder 
from Houghton county who said "I 
wish to heavens Pettit would go back 
to the lower peninsula where he came 
from. He's no good to us," — an in- 
verted compliment and an odd con- 
fession. In other words Mr. Pettit, 
insists on working alone. Then there 
is the tacit distinction between the 
upper and lower peninsula. Such 
distinction can not be in human nature 
itself or in else than geography and the 
natural variation in climatic condi- 
tions and atmospheric pressure. Mr. Pettit was not accus- 
tomed to the same pressure on this side of the straits, possibly, 
and did not readily adjust himself to his new environment. 

The chief interest in Mr. Pettit's career lies in the fact that 
he has followed so closely the liberal policies of the reform 
element of his party in the lower peninsula. It is as natural 
for a prosperous upper peninsula American to be a conserva- 
tive corporationist as it is for the socialist to shout for gov- 
ernment ownership. But coming from Hancock, right in the 
heart of the mining headquarters of Houghton county, he has 
voted for the largest measure of direct nominations, for rigid 
regulation of corporations, for everything in a general way 
that Rep. Galbraith and his contemporaries did not want. 
The logical inference is that some large and potent percentage 
of his constituents approve his course. The ante-election row 
in Houghton county last fall demonstrated that some people 
in that county wanted something they were not getting. Per- 
haps Pettit thinks it was primary elections. 

At the age of ten, nearly 40 years ago, Pettit was left an 
orphan in Emerson township, Gratiot county. A mere child, 
he at once became a farm laborer, learning what he could at 
school in the winter. When 15 he began work as a printer 
and has followed that occupation ever since. From iSgi-'gs 
he was postmaster at Ithaca. The future movements of Pettit 
and his supporters in Houghton county politics will be watched 
with the keenest interest by lower peninsula legislators. 



95 




CHARLES S, PIERCE 

(clerk of the house.) 

A friend till death — or an enemy! 
Charley Pierce never trusts a man until 
he has been tried in the fire. Then he 
will stick to him for life. If the man 
in whom he has reposed confidence and 
whom he has honored as a comrade 
proves false or counterfeit in the test- 
ing Pierce is against him and his until 
the end. His confidence is gained 
slowly and inspired very slowly. He 
has been secretary of the senate, sen- 
ator in 1893, deputy secretary of state, 
and has played politics in various ca- 
pacities. He has the dope, as the 
friends say; that is, he can't let it alone. 
Pierce showed how dearly he loved a 
fight when Warner was making his campaign for governor. 
Pierce was the private manager of the governor's campaign 
though the state central committee was the controlling organi- 
zation. Every detail was his business. Every trouble of the 
republican candidate was his trouble. He made it his duty to 
hate reporters and papers who said hostile things about his can- 
didate. Warner's battle was his battle. 

Once Pierce wandered into a saloon after a republican rally in 
a little town up-state. Two men stood chatting at the far end of 
the bar. They had heard of Pierce and his activity in the cam- 
paign. They wanted to unload some political sentiment and 
some whisky fumes. 

"Who de hell is dis Pierce?" asked one. 

"Why he's de guy what helps Tip Atwood run de state. 
He's de fellah dat carries de mon' for Warner. I tink he's de 
crookedest guy in de bunch." 

No. I then tried to outdo No. 2 in applying black names to 
Pierce. In a few minutes Pierce stepped forward and asked 
them to have a drink. "Sure." Then they told the stranger 
who they were and the stranger replied "My name's Pierce, 
Charley Pierce, I'm traveling with Warner in this campaign." 

"Well, I'll be " was the spontaneous outburst. "You 

don't look so bad at all." 

Everybody into whose hands this volume may fall will prob- 
ably know Pierce personally. They will know that his fairness 
as clerk of the house and his loyalty to the administration needs 
no public endorsement. They will know that his popularity 
with his own staff and his considerate treatment of "Lew" 
Miller, former clerk of the house whom he defeated when the 
latter turned against Gov. Bliss, will testify to the gener- 
ous character of the man. He was born in Redford township, 
Wayne county, was principal of schools at Au Sable, and has 
practised law in Oscoda. 

96 




HALLEY H. PROSSER 

(representative.) 

Public office holding is a new phase 
in the life of the fat man from Flush- 
ing. He has been busy picking up 
dollars all the while. He likes to pick 
up dollars yet. At present he is in 
produce business with a Flushing firm, 
but he was a druggist for eight years 
and formed a matrimonial copartner- 
ship in the meantime. When there 
isn't a dollar in sight Prosser spends 
his spare time looking up news. He 
does some correspondence out of his 
own town and when he came down to 
the capitol the news habit had him so 
badly that he knew everybody's busi- 
ness better than his own inside of lo 

days. It would pay any metropolitan journal to employ 
Prosser as scout, if he could be induced to take the position, 
just to circulate among the boys and promise to "give up" 
what he got on his "beat." 

Talk about standing pat! Prosser was the one man from 
the lower peninsula who could give Eichhorn of Port Huron 
a run for upper peninsula honors. Eichhorn won out when 
Prosser flunked on the final vote backing the Michigan Central 
against the attorney general. Otherwise he was there with 
the goods any old time the boss wanted them. 

You've seen in the moonlight two tawny cats, with greening 
eyes, and bushy, upright tails. They swear at each other and 
stand sideways all cleared for action, until the bootjack arrives. 
Kindly give your attention this way, ladies and gentlemen. 
The next picture on the right represents "Cass" Benton, the 
fire eating man from Wayne; and "Hal" Prosser of Genesee, 
surnamed by Ira T. Sayre, his old college chum, "Bull-in- 
the-Woods." They were last seen together as seat mates in 
the house of representatives of 1905 discussing Sayre and 
the state tax commission. Le-e-e-emonade, five a glass. Don't 
crowd the elephant, lady; he has feet and so have you. The 
show on the natural history of Michigan is now over. Kindly 
pass right through to the big tent where 

Mr. Prosser is only 35 years of age and weighs, — well, that 
will be announced at the close of the guessing contest in 1907. 




97 




J. HERBERT READ 

(representative.) 

Read is the only representative 
of 1905 who has served four consecu- 
tive terms in the house. He is coming 
to be regarded as the hereditary chair- 
man of the committee on railroads. 
He is a plain, substantial, earnest 
man with a mild disposition and well 
controlled temper, simple in his habits, 
clean in his conduct. He has the repu- 
tation of being a sincere churchman 
but is not anaemically sanctimonious. 
He sees many pleasant things in this old 
world and speaks of farm life in Man- 
istee as of the only sure haven this side 
of the grave. His training for public 
work was obtained on the board of 
supervisors, where he served seven years, holding the chairman- 
ship for two terms. 

It has been Read's painful privilege to preside over committee 
discussions of bills to reduce railroad passenger rates in the 
upper peninsula on more than one occasion,- — also to hear pleas 
for state regulation of freight rates and for doing all sorts of 
things for and against railroads. Pressed by an interviewer 
for an explanation of the committee's failure to act on one 
bill which several people in both houses had been professing 
to want, Read replied — "If some of those senators want this 
bill so badly let them introduce it and pass it over there. Then 
we'll do business. We passed that bill once and it was killed 
in committee across the hall. There's no use wasting time on 
mere four-flushing." 

Right there Mr. Read explained a lot of things that had been 
worrying some of the railroad regulators. He himself had 
always appeared fair, though much inclined to follow the 
ultra-conservative leaders of both houses. He was very close 
to John J. Carton, speaker of 1901 and '03 and was a co-worker 
with Speaker Master this session. His argument that railroad 
regulation bills should originate in the senate and be passed 
there first has all the weight of history. 

Read's most prominent bill this year was the tonnage tax 
measure in which the steel trust fleet was pitted against the 
big Detroit passenger lines. The steel trust made a bitter 
fight on the bill, which was vetoed by Gov. AVarner on the 
ground that Michigan should stick to the ad valorem taxation 
policy. 



\^^ 



98 




JAMES FULTON RUMER 

(senator.) 

If Senator Rumer had secured the 
enactment of his pet measure there 
would be no advisory board in the 
matter of pardons in Michigan. But 
Gov. Warner wished to retain the board 
for self-protection and the board was 
willing to retain itself at $7 a da^^ 
Rumer had a theory that the pardon 
board was a menace to the execution 
of justice and the majesty of the law, 
and found some prominent circuit judges 
who averred that the board had practi- 
cally usurped the jurisdiction of the 
supreme court in part. 

But what a pleasant life the governor 
of Michigan would lead without a buffer 

on pardons and paroles! For the number of applications about 
equals the number of convicts and each application must be 
examined. Senator Rumer lost and under the peculiar custom 
of his district limiting each senator to one term his experience 
in handling this as well as other proposed legislation will be of 
no benefit to the thirteenth district or the state in 1907. 

Rumer is a thorough Rooseveltian. He is the father of five 
children, his eldest son being now associated with him in the 
practice of medicine with headquarters at Davison. The 
senator himself is one of a family of nine children, eight of whom 
are alive. He looks as if he would be about number eight to 
cash in. He is a graduate of the Kentucky School of Medicine, 
Louisville, of '89 ; ex-president of the Genesee County Medical 
Society and ex-president of his village, where he was also presi- 
dent of the school board for 12 years. He was born in Ohio 
in '52. 

Like all good medical men the doctor always has a good story, 
which he delivers in the proper time and place with the same 
gusto that embellishes his speeches. He is short and stout, 
with fair complexion, the deportment of a man who has been 
accustomed to attention, and the substantiality of a good 
feeder. He is very deferential and courteous, and not objection- 
ably aggressive. The next time the men of '05 meet, he will 
be called upon to repeat his Davison anecdote of the spring- 
feeder. 

LOFC 




99 




HUNTLEY RUSSELL 

(senator.) 

If Homer Warren of Detroit has the 
same good fortune with his "Sword of 
Bunker Hih" that has followed Senator 
Russell's tenor notes, he will be governor 
of Michigan some day. The senator 
is one of the song birds of Grand Rapids 
where they ask a man to "have some- 
thing" in all the flats and sharps, and 
then throw in variations of liquid 
melody. A politician who can neither 
sing nor drink in Grand Rapids will 
soon go back to the farm. Russell was 
elected by the largest vote ever given 
a candidate in his district, consisting 
of all the townships in Kent county 
and a fraction of the city. 
Connecticut men are very scarce in the personnel of the all- 
republican government. Russell is probably the only represent- 
ative of that state. He was born at New Britain and educated 
at Waterbury and at Trinity College, Hartford. He was a 
civil engineer on the New York and New England line running 
from Waterbury to Fishkill. When he came west to try his 
fortune he located on a Michigan farm and dipped into lumber- 
ing. He is still a farmer on the outskirts of Grand Rapids 
and abundantly prosperous. He is 47 years of age and the 
father of two sons. 

Kent county is in the habit of sending men to the Senate 
with strong convictions and strong instructions where there 
may be any doubt about the convictions. Russell was with 
the popular measures all the way, even fighting the $10,000 
appropriation for the state fair at Detroit to show his people 
that if the western fair at Grand Rapids could not get any 
state money he would not give any to the Detroit performance. 
He came to Lansing with the notion that it was wrong to ride 
on the cars for nothing, but found himself most desperately 
lonesome. Whatever the price of his fare his course of action 
revealed not a symptom of outside influence. He was never 
caught straddling the fence or hesitating on a good bill. 
Turn on the music. 





You're about the 



IRA T. SAYRE 

(tax commissioner.) 

A story that will stand repeating is 
one related by Sayre himself and en- 
joyed by many of his friends. 

He was walking past the corner of a 
Lansing building one mild winter's day. 
Above his head hung large angles of ice 
and snow loosening with the thaw. 
Barricades had been erected on the side- 
walk to keep pedestrians at a safe dis- 
tance from the building. In his hurry 
Sayre climbed the barricades when a 
voice sang out from across the street: 

"Be careful there, Ira. I'd hate to 
see you get hurt." 

"What's that?" asked Ira to make 
sure of the words. 

"I say I'd hate to see you get hurt, Ira. 
only asset we've got now." 

The speaker was Lawton T. Hemans of Mason, leader of the 
last democratic minority. 

If his critics could see Sayre laugh at that story they would 
begin to appreciate his point of view. It's a laissez faire point 
of view that takes hard luck in politics as it took hard luck in 
his poor days as a young lawyer. Howbeit, in politics his luck 
has always been with him. He has never been defeated for any 
of the many offices for which he fought. 

As a friend of the late Gov. Pingree, Sayre has been charged 
with extraordinary leniency with the railroads as an assessing 
officer of those corporations under the very law which Pingree 
created. His sensation producer was the filing of an affidavit 
giving certain testimony in favor of the railroads in the ad 
valorem test case. 

In the first case the day of reckoning has not yet come. The 
tax commission and the ad valorem assessments are still ex- 
periments with the pioneer work mostly done and a new tax 
commission to begin clearing the atmosphere in the fall of the 
present year. When the day of reckoning does come, the super- 
visors who have taken advantage of the situation to cover their 
own iniquities will have quite as much reckoning to do as will 
Mr. Sayre. 

In the second case Sayre says this, and he didn't say it for 
publication, "I have been guilty of a political indiscretion in the 
filing of the affidavit, but of no more. I could have been hauled 
into court and made to say the same things I swore to there. 
But there is no use trying .'to explain it that way to the people 
and I have never tried to. I am willing to take the people's 
verdict and any medicine they think I should take." 



101 




ARTHUR W, SCIDMORE 

(representative.) 

By the sweat of his brow this man 
has risen to the ranks of the medical 
profession and been honored as the 
first citizen of Three Rivers. Born on 
a farm in Jackson, toihng under the 
burning sun for the few dollars that 
were to give him a modest high school 
training, clerking while he took his 
high school work and finally landing 
a medical degree from the state uni- 
versity, — that, in brief, is the struggle 
of the gentleman from St. Joe. Now 
at the age of 38 he retains still some 
of the earmarks of the early fight, — 
a robust physique, a sturdy figure and 
passably handsome face, with the quick 
step that made him get there. He still seems to be a bundle 
of nerves, — always on edge and always moving and roving. 

In lawmaking this session Dr. Scidmore played a silent, but 
effective part. He rarely addressed the chair, except on some 
local matter, but his silence was not the outcome of indiffer- 
ence and ignorance. He knew the talking would be done 
anyhow and placed his vote intelligently when called upon. 
Scidmore was not one of the men who had to read the morning 
papers to find out what they had been doing the day before. 
It was as a member of the public health committee and the 
committee on fish and fisheries that Scidmore did most of his 
work. He was one of the men who had to pass on the bill 
ousting Dr. Baker as secretary of the state board of health 
and was one of the men who went to Chicago to confer with 
representatives from other great lakes states on the possibility 
of enacting uniform laws. The conference recommendations 
were not accepted by the legislature, but they at least had an 
educational value in the process of securing at some future 
time some means of protecting the fish food supply. 

Another function that Scidmore performed, private but worth 
mentioning, was the collection of fees for the $230 diamond 
that made the speaker's heart glad and dazzled the eyes of 
the fair females in the galleries the night of adjournment. For 
the doctor's entertaining qualities you will have to see Roast- 
master Adams and the other celebrities of those little down 
town "game" dinners after hours. 



4==^ 



102 



INSPIRED! 




To the elevator man one committee clerk was a joy forever. 



103 




GEORGE G, SCOTT 

(representative.) 

For the son of a clergyman Scott 
is a very tame, orderly young man, 
with a goodly endowment of what the 
politician calls "smoothness." Scott's 
"smoothness" does not border on du- 
plicity, but rather ranks as first class 
diplomacy. He seldom has shown ex- 
citement even in the most exciting 
situations. Poise is a valuable asset. 
It always meets the poiseless man off 
his guard, it accepts an insinuation 
with placidity and opposition with a 
smile. In Scott's struggle with one of 
his Wayne colleagues in the senate 
for a favorable report on his bill at- 
taching a referendum to all public 
utility franchises in Wayne county outside of Detroit, the 
expression of his face, the tone of his voice were always normal. 
That bill, it is well known, failed to pass for various reasons. 
But that other Scott bill, making possible an increase of over 
16,000 in the population of Detroit and extending the city 
limits to include Delray, Woodmere and a part of Springwells, 
did pass, and largely on the initiative of Scott himself. His 
hold on the up-state representatives enabled him to overcome 
the opposition from a Detroit member. The significant thing 
about Scott's course on this bill is the fact that he himself is 
attorney for Delray and his brother is postmaster. The prob- 
able loss of the two jobs in his own family by annexation to 
Detroit did not deter him in the slightest. On other matters 
Scott was always ready to give Detroit and her suburbs any- 
thing they asked or wanted in reason. 

Like Rep. Bland, Scott is guilty of bachelorhood. Either 
Scott is to take a wife or President Roosevelt is not to be taken 
seriously. At the ripe age of 31 the gentleman from Delray 
has little to fear. He is a particularly safe man for the legis- 
lature, but without, probing into private family matters the 
scribe would respectfully recommend the same treatment for 
him as for his brother deserter from Detroit. 




104 




THADDEUS D. SEELEY 

(senator.) 

When Senator Seeley was a repre- 
sentative in 1 90 1 and 1903 he was 
regarded as a stand patter. That is, 
he was more inchned to do what a 
majority of the boys assembled at 
Lansing were disposed to do than to 
go too far in following the advice of the 
boys at home. He himself has de- 
scribed by anecdote the dilemma the 
average statesman must solve when it 
comes to using his better judgment, or 
the judgment of his friends, against the 
popular clamor of the voters. Before 
one of his elections he was "put on the 
pan" by some of the farmer's organiza- 
tions in Oakland county and closely in- 
terrogated as to his views and probable policies if he were elected. 

Those were the days of the "crying demand" for equal taxa- 
tion. One farmer wanted to know if Seeley would tax the 
railroads for all he was worth. Seeley replied — "I would tax 
the railroads and all other corporations to the same extent to 
which I would tax private individuals." After some more 
parleying he satisfied the inquisitor that he would do. 

During the session of 1905 when sleeping cars were to be put 
on the ad valorem list. Senator Seeley was interviewed by 
the same constituent. "You fellows aren't going to tax tele- 
phone companies are you, the same as railroads?" anxiously 
inquired the inquisitor. 

"That seems to be the intention" replied Seeley. Then the 
old gentleman unfolded a tale of investment in local telephone 
companies and how they would go out of business and how he 
would lose if they were put on the ad valorem list. "But I 
thought you wanted equal taxation" exclaimed Seelev. 

"Well, so I do, but . " 

Senator Seeley has tried to find the safe way out of the bush 
with fairness to both sides. Representing Gov. Warner's 
county he was very close to the administration and was in charge 
of the governor's end of the successful fight to tax sleeping cars 
and reduce the tax commission to three men in the fall of 
the present year. He is still under forty, robust and happy, 
and the proprietor of a rich live stock farm in the Pontiac 
district. His first nomination for the senate was received by 
acclamation. 



105 




SUEL ANDREWS SHELDON 

(senator.) 

There is a deal of the pioneer about 
Senator Sheldon, — the almost brutal 
frankness, the loud speech, the reck- 
lessness that grew out of his open, 
fresh air life when he worked in the 
woods of western Michigan with his 
father nearly 50 years ago. The other 
man's feelings are nothing to him as 
long as he makes his point. When he 
votes, he votes for all the world to hear 
and talks on the floor and off it in the 
same tone. "It's a rotten steal" was 
his declamation on one action taken by 
the senate. And a cross section of a 
speech on the expenses to be allowed the 
Wayne recount committee, sounded 
like this, — "Some of these senators like to tell their folks how 
economical they are. They can't take $10 a day for this job 
and then go back home and talk patriotism. Let 'em take what 
they're worth and fly the flag on the little red school house for 
the rest." Sheldon's motion didn't carry but he enjoyed 
himself. 

Climaxes are Sheldon's hobby, — the doing of something 
unusual. The effect of his surprises pleased him immensely. 
One day he was worrying the cigarette fiends with an anti- 
cigarette bill, and roasting the cigarette lobbyist as "the man 
with the golden palm." Next, he spread consternation through- 
out Ottawa county by passing in the senate a bill limiting the 
number of terms the local politicians could hold office. He 
generally halted before any damage was done. Behind his 
gruff, boisterous manner, lay the cunning of the fox. Ask him 
for his position on any question on which he did not care to 
put himself on record and quiz him as closely as might be, he 
would evade direct replies with all the art of the studied sophist. 
Perhaps he learned some of the art as a senator in '99. 

Sheldon's quick wit did not come from the academic training 
of schools of learning. It was a by-product of efifective self- 
reliance and a lifelong battle with nature, animate and in- 
animate. His school work was done in the winter and at home, 
but he finally ranked as a teacher himself. Since then he has 
plowed through other obstacles and has held important business 
positions for several different firms. He is an ex-president of 
the Ottawa and West Kent Agricultural Society, and now owns 
the farm in Wright township, Ottawa, which his father acquired 
some time after the birth of Suel A. and his arrival from Wis- 
consin. 



106 




ABRAM N. SHOOK 

(representative.) 

No man did more for the cause of 
direct nominations in the session of 
1905 by calm, persistent insistence that 
his people wanted them than did Rep. 
Shook of Montcalm. No man did less 
in the session of 1903. A glance at the 
election returns of 1904 will undoubtedly 
explain the change in the gentleman's 
attitude. Montcalm gave Warner for 
governor a plurality of 1,193. With a 
reasonably clear understanding that 
Shook was a good primary election man 
he got a majority of 3,330. Besides, 
the democratic candidate for governor 
was rampaging very near Montcalm 
county for the very election reform that 

Shook so boldly supported this session. As has been frequently 
pointed out in the press of the state Gov. Warner's great personal 
popularity could not stop the reform stampede, and Rep. 
Shook got aboard. 

Shook was never known to make a speech. But in private 
discussions in which even more votes are made than by public 
utterances, he related to the first termers the experience of a 
man who had gone through his second campaign and who knew 
where he had been hit. The second termers had the spectacle 
of his complete conversion from indifference to active, aggressive 
work for the widest possible measure of reform. His position 
as secretary of the Montcalm county republican committee, 
and the fact that he was the man in Montcalm county closest 
to the situation gave his arguments weight. He even went so 
far as to begin the preparation of a bill giving his own county 
primary elections in case a general bill failed to pass. 

It was for the part he pla3'ed in this piece of legislation that 
Shook was best known. On other bills of general importance 
he followed a course of tolerable independence and intelligent 
fairness. Socially he was well and favorably known by nearly 
every man in the house of representatives. He is a native 
Montcalmer, 36 years of age, bright and active, married, and 
associated with his father in a general mercantile lousiness at 
Coral. 




107 




F. W. SHUMWAY 

(secretary of the state board of health.) 

It was a bad day for the bugs when 
Dr. Baker retired after a generation of 
pubUc service. In his time he had 
brought the state sanitary department 
to a high degree of efficiency. He was 
on intimate terms with every microbe 
of respectable parentage in the state. 
And they were on intimate terms with 
him. Whole generations of them had 
been watching him year after year un- 
til they knew his methods like the path- 
ology of their victims. They always 
had due notice of a raid from the health 
department before it came off, and the 
piles, mountains high, of ancient, speck- 
led documents on the doctor's desk in 
the health office afforded them a pleasant bed and shelter when 
they came to call. 

The first interview between the doctor and the scribe was con- 
ducted "by wireless" across the summit of these documents and 
amid tacked maps hung about the walls to indicate the state 
encampments of the bacilli. In the distance appeared the ven- 
erable cranium of the secretary with a quill waving in the di- 
rection of the enemy — that is to say, the senators, upstairs. 

All this is of interest as a scene that once was, but which has 
now passed into history. There is a cheerless cleanliness about 
the office since the entry of Dr. Shumway, and a businesslike 
atmosphere that speaks ill for any pathological loafer who re- 
fuses to get out and hustle for his tissue. 

The new doctor himself is personally clean and morally clean. 
When his appointment was announced one of the newspaper 
men started on a still hunt to see what trouble he could stir 
up for the next edition. He inspected the accounts of the new 
appointee as a member of the board of pardons and found them 
strictly o. k. In appearance and bearing the new secretary 
might be taken for a twin brother of the noted deraocrat, D. J. 
Campau of Detroit. 

Dr. Shumway is a Williamston man. He has begun a sys- 
tematic co-operation with the state educational department for 
guarding the public schools against epidemics by instructing 
both teachers and pupils in the rudiments of sanitary science. 
Being a practical man he is endeavoring to spend the appropri- 
ations at his disposal in adopting only the practical theories for 
the prevention of disease and the safety of the public health. 



108 




NATHAN. F. SIMPSON 

(representative.) 

"Isn't it a terror to see the railroad 
crowd in the legislature grow" remarked 
Rep. Simpson to the scribe one day. 
As a matter of fact the railroad crowd 
was not as big as it had been, but 
Simpson had just been defeated on his 
pet measure. That measure was drafted 
to make steam railroads in Michigan 
common carriers of live stock. Simpson 
pushed it through the house. He went 
before the railroad committees and 
stalled off the assaults of several prom- 
inent and influential railroad attor- 
neys. The senate railroad commit- 
tee refused to report the bill. Senator 
Woodman, Simpson's colleague, could 
not muster the votes to take it away from the committee. And 
Simpson has gone back to Van Buren nursing vengeance on 
the men that make such things possible. He has been credited 
with a desire to take the lieutenant governorship away from 
the upper peninsula and give the appointment of senate com- 
mittees to somebody more amenable to southern peninsula 
influence. 

"There's a man who will yet make things interesting" was 
Senator Woodman's judgment. "He is one of the men who 
likes trouble if anybody is looking for it. He'll stay on the 
trail of the railroad folks until he wins. For he never lays 
down." Coming from a man who knows Simpson politically 
and intimately that statement should be worth something. 

Taken in connection with Simpson's famous battle signal, 
when an attempt was made to amend the Michigan Central 
investigation bill and send it back to the upper house, the 
senator's judgment becomes more valuable. The signal was 
this, shouted from the middle of the floor "Everybody stand 
pat. The senate wants to kill this bill." Togo and Nelson 
flew signals like that before their great battles. 

Rep. Simpson was captain of Co. G, 35th Michigan Volunteers 
in the Spanish American war and captain and quartermaster 
of the 45th U. S. volunteers in the Philippines, and was a chief 
district quartermaster under Gen. Bell. He spent two years 
on the wild and woolly plains of western Nebraska in the '80s. 
Down in his corner of the state he is known as a horse tamer, 
and trainer as well as fruit grower and farmer since he left 
military service in June four years ago. 

And — "he likes trouble if anvbodv is looking for it." 



j& 



109 




CHARLES SMITH 

(senator.) 

Did it ever occur to those Wayne 
people who heap execrations on the 
head of the senator from the copper 
country that he is a native of their own 
county, the product of Livonia town- 
ship? This is his sixth term in the 
legislature, two in the house and four 
in the senate. He is hereditary chair- 
man of the committee on finance and 
appropriations and the mentor for the 
conservatives. Even as Bryan is the 
advocate of the free coinage of silver, 
so is Smith the friend of property. 

This patriarch can brook no conces- 
sion to populism; he has no patience for 
radical democracy; his veneration for 
political organization resembles a kaiserlike militarism. His 
hand is alwa3"s open to help a friend or closed to strike a blow 
at an enemy; if, perchance, his enemy prefers hostility to peace. 
The intensity of his bitterness when a majority of the senate 
voted for direct nominations for lieutenant governor blazed 
out in these words: — "We of the upper peninsula feel like the 
man in the bible who went down to Jericho and fell among 
thieves." It was little short of thievery to him for republicans 
to take any step looking to the possible weakening of the re- 
publican host beyond the straits. 

It is a strange thing the critics of Senator Smith would ask 
him to do, — enact general legislation inimical to the very 
vocation in which he has earned his daily bread. For 32 years 
he has been in the employ of copper companies, and is at present 
clerk of the smelting department of the Calumet & Hecla Mining 
Co. besides holding large interests in other commercial and 
financial institutions. It has been demanded of Senator Smith 
that he leave politics or leave the copper interests. The im- 
plication is that incorporated property should have no voice 
in the making of Michigan's laws, while labor and constructive 
socialism have. Senator Smith answers that he has been 
supervisor of his township in Houghton county for 17 consecutive 
years and was elected to the senate in 1904 by the largest 
majority in the state. 




no 




LAWRENCE W. SNELL 

(representative.) 

Squire Snell will never die friendless ; 
for should he go "broke" and daffy in 
his old age the thousand Detroit babies 
he is nov^^ feeding on pure, sweet formal- 
dehydeless milk, will rise up to bless the 
old man and care for him as for a phil- 
anthropist. We all pay for good milk, 
but may the good Lord of all be 
especially merciful to those who give 
it to us ! Squire Snell is a well rounded 
citizen — figuratively speaking of course. 
He is a Mason, a Maccabee, a milk and 
cattle dealer, formerly a dealer in real 
estate, a politician and legislator, and 
his intimacy with Detroit steamboat 
transportation leads to the belief that 
he knows something about marine affairs. 

Except that he would not allow the metropolis to have any 
of his district. Squire Snell was very good to Detroit. He 
voted for the annexation of the Delray district, provided the 
township of Greenfield was left intact. He bucked the annexa- 
tion of Fairview, in the which he may have been more kind 
than was his intent. He even voted for the Greusel joint 
resolution for municipal ownership though he and Greusel could 
never eat out of the same dish. 

But it was as the champion of the Michigan Agricultural 
Society in its efforts to make the state fair at Detroit a success 
that Snell showed his best. He even introduced and prosecuted 
a bill to enlarge his own village of Highland Park in order to 
force property owners to allow the laying of a double track to 
carry visitors to the new fair grounds. The property owners 
came to time. In one of the bitterest fights of the session, — 
and this fight dosen't seem to be over yet — he secured an appro- 
priation of $10,000 for two years' premiums for Michigan exhibits, 
besides an appropriation for the erection of the Michigan St. 
Louis Fair building on the new grounds. Mr. Snell was ex- 
cited during that fight. He never misses an opportunity of 
getting excited. But his grey matter is sound and wholesome 
and admits of excitement without temporary derangement. 



Ill 




WILLIAM L. STANNARD 

(representative.) 

This gentleman is the father of 
Theodore Warner Stannard, the son of 
Rep. Stannard, and the godson of 
President Roosevelt and Gov. Warner 
by the grace of the Michigan legislature. 
Theodore Warner is only one among 
many Stannards of the same genera- 
ation, but he will have the honor of 
perpetuating his father's political 
prowess as long as he shall live. We 
might remark in passing that Stannard 
won his election by a vote of 4,200 to i. 
Stannard's comrades from the upper 
peninsula say he is very well "fixed" 
and that he "fixed" himself in coppers. 
He resented the name of Croesus ap- 
plied to him by one correspondent during the session, though 
not denying that he has shut the wolf out of his last opening. 
He at least cannot refute the charge that he retired from a 
business partnership with his brother two years ago at the age 
of 32 and that he smokes cigars rich enough to feed a poor 
man's family. His partnership with his brother followed an 
experience as shipping clerk with a Marquette hardware firm 
and as clerk in his father's store. If he has half the money 
his moneyless colleagues reckon for him he is well "fixed" 
indeed. But whatever the facts, he makes no distasteful dis- 
play of his good fortune and is a friend of all good fellows. The 
hotter the game the better for Stannard. 

One night Stannard started ofif with a party of friends to see 
a circus. There was no circus, and the mud-bedaubed quintette 
piled into a hack for the return to the hotel. A very fresh 
cabby tried to empty the party somewhere in the outskirts 
of Ingham county. Stannard and the cabby exchanged un- 
printable remarks, but Stannard did not get out. Arrived at 
the hotel the cabby opened the door on the farther side of the 
street. "No, you don't" roared the obdurate one from Green- 
land, pulling back his legs. "We paid you to take us across 
the street." The cabby drove across the street in a very bad 
temper and emptied a mouthful of blasphemy and profanity 
with his passengers, adding "Wait a minute and I'll get you 
guineas a check for bed." 

"No thank you" replied the upper peninsula man "All we 
want is our money's worth." 

Stannard is just as willing to let the other fellow have his 
money's worth, and there's the jewel in the setting. 



112 




DAVID STOCKDALE 

(representative.) 

To anyone who had heard even the bare 
facts of Rep. Stockdale's hfe, the at- 
tempt of some of his colleagues from 
the same congressional district to alter 
his course on the primary election bill 
was indeed laughable. Stockdale, of 
course, did as he pleased and voted with 
the minority of the elections committee 
in favor of the Dickinson bill applying 
direct nominations to the first two state 
offices. He later had the satisfaction 
of winning. 

But here is what the coercers went 
up against; — a man born in Lincoln- 
shire, England, in ';}8; apprenticed in 
a blacksmith shop at the age of 12; 

brought to Michigan with his parents four vears later and a 
blacksmith at Wayland from '58 to '65; independent farmer 
and law student until he was admitted to practice at the age of 
46; justice of the peace for 24 years; supervisor for 10 years; 
president of Allegan village one year ; judge of probate of Allegan 
county for 12 years; now a representative, farmer on a large 
scale, and senior member of the firm of "David Stockdale & Son, 
attorneys." He has also been prominent in the party organiza- 
tion in his own district. 

It was not surprising that a man of this make and testing 
should have a sane, firm, opinion on public matters or that he 
should be ready to back his opinion. On every general bill 
that came up he had his own ideas, — possibly held to them a 
trifie obstinately and stubbornly; even as he had held to his 
purposeful view of life with obstinacy and stubbornness from 
the day he first made the anvil ring for his daily bread. At 
67 a man may be forgiven some decay of virility and vigor. 
Rep. Stockdale asks no forgiveness. He has all the vigor his 
rugged work has built up and can use it forcefully even at the 
approach of three score and ten. In matters affecting probate 
court work particularly he put to rout some of the best debaters 
in the house and fought like a man half his age. 

A silver spoon looks prettier than a horse-shoe hammer but 
it doesn't weigh as much. 



113 




ALVAH G. STONE 

(representative.) 

He's a little fellow — good natured, 
affable, sincere, intense — chairman of 
the house elections committee — farmer, 
speechmaker — honest, but an aspirant 
for the state senate — above all, a re- 
publican. This is Stone of Lenawee. 

He's a little fellow through no fault 
of his; he's good natured and affable 
because he is endowed with a healthy 
liver; he's sincere because a man of 
his integrity could not be anything 
else; he's chairman of the elections 
committee because the administration 
had enough men to be placed on that 
committee to vote him down; he's a 
farmer and speechmaker by occupa- 
tion as well as choice; he's an aspirant for the state senate be- 
cause he knows the senate needs some fresh blood that has not 
been inoculated; he's a republican or he would not have accepted 
the senate's primary election bill, euphemistically called a 
"compromise" bill. 

Stone is one of those primary reformers who for six years 
past have brought forth anathemas from certain party leaders 
— "leaders" by divine right, and thoroughly convinced that 
leadership was their heritage and theirs alone. It need not be 
taken as an aspersion by any of these gentlemen who have been 
fighting the Stones in Michigan to recall the recent utterance 
of a plebeian in Philadelphia, nationally known as plain Charley 
Smith, that "piracy is not republicanism." For all this goes 
to show how earnest members of any party may wash their 
dirty linen together under the same roof. 

This little Lenawee farmer has been a source of much ex- 
ecration and mystification on the part of the gentlemen from 
beyond the straits of Mackinac particularly. 

"Why," said one of them, "if Stone had known his business 
he could have passed any old primary bill he wanted in the 
house." 

When informed that Stone had no desire to go any further 
than the whole legislature and the governor could be made to 
go, the gentleman looked sceptical, puzzled. It was his private 
opinion that Stone was at heart a democrat or anarchist, because 
he had fought unceasingly inside his own party for what he 
believed his people wanted and what he knew he wanted, and 
assumed to know no more. 

Pass the Stones again, please; they're pretty good legislative 
fodder. 



114 




SENECA CHAMBERLAIN TRAVER 

(senator.) 

If there is any claim to righteousness 
in primary elections in Wayne county, 
it is that they retired to private life the 
Hon. "Pop" Goodell, the cosmopolitan, 
metropolitan representative of the fourth 
senatorial district. Incidentally they 
gave us Traver. "Pop" was too merry 
an old scout to take serious state business 
seriously. His statesmanship consisted 
solely of foxiness, — the faculty of fooling 
the other fellow before he fooled you. 
Traver was too handsome a man to be 
kept behind the scenes. Ask any of 
the ogling dames and mesdames of all 
shades and shapes who visited the 
senate chamber to hear a debate, — 

and found themselves feasting their eyes on splendid, single 
manhood. For Senator Traver is tall, athletic, with bright 
brown eyes, and rosy cheeks, and legs that were made to fit 
the latest style of trousers, and a fancy vest. 

The ragged holes burned in the senate carpet by the red 
hot ashes of "Pop's" clay pipe have been worn smooth by 
the graceful tread of vici-kids and patent leathers. The senator 
from the fourth in the session of 1905 always wore a collar, 
clean linen, and a clean face. Soap and water had come into 
their own. A beau brummel had sprung out of a bean stalk. 

Spring duck shooting was the source of Traver's troubles 
this session. He might have done for Michigan what Alexander 
Hamilton did for the union and drafted a proposed constitution 
to meet every growing need of a modern state, but had he gone 
back to River Rouge with no spring duck shooting he would 
have gone back to stav. As chairman of the senate committee 
on gaming interests lie fought Baird of Saginaw until a spring 
season was provided for in the new protective law. Then he 
had time to do some work for primary elections and to shoot 
a hole or two in the bill for the state inspection of private banks. 

There is English and Dutch blood in Traver with the atmos- 
phere of Iowa, his native state, and of New York where he 
was taught and taught school. He is a brisk voung lawyer 
of the sparking age of 38. 'Id you hear that, loidies? 




115 




JEROME E. TURNER 

(representative.) 

Muskegon county has an aspirant for 
the speakership in 1907, — provided there 
is a free-for-all for that position. Rep. 
Turner has not announced his candidacy 
but it is well understood among his 
friends he would be mightilv pleased 
to take the honor. All of this is only 
a natural and laudable ambition on 
Mr. Turner's part, but he was very 
active in bringing about the discom- 
fiture of several very prominent per- 
sonages in his fight for the Dickinson vs. 
the Ivory-Double primary election bill. 
He is a lawyer of experience and knows 
that in politics the man a'ou beat does 
not want to have you on his side in the 
next row unless you change your mind on such important issues. 
But all this is speculation. 

It is interesting to note how Turner came to be a lawyer. 
He was a drug clerk and a bank clerk and a law clerk by the 
time he was old enough to vote. The law clerkship he went 
through in his father's office. He liked the game and in 1880 
he entered the office of Maybury & Conely in Detroit, being 
admitted to the bar the next year. Fifteen years ago he went 
into partnership with his brother in Muskegon. He is now 
the city attorney for Muskegon Heights and was formally city 
attorney for Owosso for three years. It was in Owosso and 
Corunna that Turner received his primary education. He is a 
native of Howell, Mich., of '58, and one of the best looking 
men in the house. 

Turner always betrayed great surprise in debate when anybody 
exhibited a knowledge of something that was new to him. But 
he was ever strategic in conceiving retorts that scored in re- 
buttal though they did savor strongly of legalistic persiflage. 
He has ability and his just portion of crafts and wiles. He is 
never asleep at the switch. In fact he was one of the men who 
lay awake to see that the switch was opened for the Michigan 
Central investigation bill to run off the track, because he believed 
the attorney general was doing something that was against 
good public policy and against good law in asking for its passage, 
— against good law; yes, yes, that was it. He is a good 
fighter, — and that covers a multitude of sins. 





SIMEON VAN AKIN 

(senator.) 

To see the slow, almost languid 
manner and scattered white hair of the 
senator from Monroe and Lenawee, one 
would hardly conjecture that Van Akin 
at the age of 19 was one of the sharp- 
shooters of the famous Berdans, though 
his lithe figure and his nervous wav still 
tell of the man of action. 

He is a man of principle too. In 1903 
he was anything but enthusiastic for 
the cause of primary elections though 
the county of Lenawee, at least, was 
seething with the agitation. In the 
campaign of 1904 Van Akin plainly 
told his neighbors in Monroe and his 
constituents in Lenawee if they didn't 

like his style of doing business at Lansing thev could go to pot. 
He was ready to stand, he said, on the record of the senate 
journal whether that showed him for or against primary re- 
form and he was ready to stand by what he had done anyhow 
irrespective of the journal records. "If you fellows want to 
send another man to the senate, send him." was the effect of 
his ultimatum. 

During the session of 1905 Van Akin received a letter from 
a grange in his district scoring him for what he had not done for 
primary elections and threatening him with political expugnance 
unless he did as they said and did it at once. The senator 
called a reporter into caucus with him. 

"Did you ever see such blasted impudence?" asked the 
senator. The reporter averred he had not. 

"What will I do with it? Give it to you and let you fix up 
an answer?" The reporter's fingers were growing itchy. It 
was a shame to take the money, besides he had been asked his 
honest opinion. He advised the senator to keep the letter 
private. The senator thought perhaps that was good advice 
and reluctantly said he might act on it. 

All of which goes to show that you can't make the senator 
believe he is wrong by kicking him from behind before you 
tell him why. Most of us like to sign a protocol before we 
begin to treat with the enemv, let alone make concessions. 

Senator Van Akin is a farmer among farmers and does not 
fancv bulldozing methods. He has held several local offices 
by the votes of his farmer friends. 

He has never been afraid of the cars, — rather likes 'em. 



j& 



117 




CHARLES VAN KEUREN 

(representative.) 

Anything to get there ! The will that 
"finds a way or makes it" is as much 
American as Roman; as much a pride 
and glory to the young man in the every 
day battle of life as it was to the young 
imperial Augustus at Phillippi and 
Actium. Historiographies are written 
around the incident of the youth born 
in the purple who deigns to soil his 
hands with manly toil under circum- 
stances that compel labor or disgrace or 
death. Youths of the twentieth century 
who stoop to menial things because by 
the stooping they climb one step higher 
do not relish the menial work any more 
than their brother born in the purple 
welcomes manual toil. For on this side of the foot stool we are 
all born in the purple. 

Waiting on table as a college student is not the thing a man 
does by choice but it sent Rep. Van Keuren one step higher. 
It made him ready for any emergency the battle of every day 
might offer. It gave him his university education. It made 
him the lawmaking representative of his native county at 27. 
As a traveling representative in America and France for some 
of the biggest publishing houses he has crowded a large ac- 
quaintance with human nature into his youth. He is now a 
publisher himself. 

It was quite evident in Van Keuren's case that the greybeards 
of the house resent reproach and criticism from men so young 
as he; not that the greybeards question a great many of the 
arguments of the youngsters but simply because it goes against 
the grain to hear it. Van Keuren had trouble in securing 
support for many of his motions, except on his Livingston county 
measures, but always took a very active part in the proceedings 
of the house. He was absolutely impervious to snubs from 
opponents or to "joshes" from friends. He stood by his guns 
to the finish in the fight for direct nominations for governor and 
lieutenant governor and was the one man in the lower house 
who made an open, effective, fearless attack on the railroad 
lobby from the floor. 

A man's value to his county or his state is not to be judged 
solely by his personal following among his colleagues. 




118 




CHARLES E, WARD 

(REPRESEXTATIVE.) 

Chairman of the ways and means com- 
mittee ; and about the smallest man in 
the house, physically speaking, — physi- 
cally speaking. Legislatively, person- 
ally, and socially, Ward is as big a man 
as there is among the men of '05. His 
coup d'etat was the humbling of the 
patricians in the upper house who 
wanted to spend more money, as usual, 
than did the house; and who were, 
unusually, defeated. 

It was not until the closing hours of 
the six months grind that Ward's com- 
mittee reported the measures on which 
there promised to be a fight. The 
senators interested in the institutions 

affected kicked. It was too late. It was impossible to change 
the hour of adjournment to a later date. Under Ward's ad- 
vice and coaching the house conference committees stood pat 
on the original reports of the ways and means committee, and 
in only one case did the house recede from its position. The 
Marquette normal school got an additional $8,000. Ward's 
game cannot be worked more than once in the same decade. 
Already some senators are laying plans to prevent such a reversal 
of prestige next session. But by successfully executing its 
policy Ward's committee saved the tax payers of '05 a good 
quarter of a million dollars. 

There are people in Shiawassee county who say that Ward 
did not represent the majority of his constituents in voting 
with Gov. Warner on the primary election bill. Rep. W^ard 
at least remained true to the governor whom Shiawassee helped 
to elect. There are also men in Shiawassee who vow that if 
Ward wants a third term they will give it to him. 

On the governor's measure for the state inspection of private 
banks Ward opposed his excellency. He is cashier of a Bancroft 
bank, spoke against the bill in the house, and helped to defeat 
it in the senate. His opposition, as far as the governor was 
personallv concerned, was a Gaston- Alphonse afifair in which 
the duelists ate cheese together before and after the mill. 

The subject's picture speaks for him. It is not wonderful 
that those Detroit ladies who were after a Macomb monument 
should fly into a temper w^hen they found such a pretty little 
man so mean with the money. He certainly sails under false 
colors. A lady naturally expects to get anything she wants 
from a face like that. She can within reason. For Ward is 
really as good as he looks, senators. 

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119 



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FRED M. WARNER 

(governor.) 

Gov. Warner has evidently set out 
to give Michigan the best government 
he can. In that attempt he necessarily 
clashes with the v^ill and the wishes 
of other men who have served the re- 
publican party and who do not see eye 
to eye with him. In many instances 
these men are his warm personal friends 
and advisers. No man ever reached 
an elective office alone. Every candi- 
date has friends. The least he can do 
is to give them a respectful hearing and 
sometimes oblige them. In guiding his 
administration to conserve the general 
interests of the whole commonwealth 
without crippling the limited interests 
of his party and its leaders and organizers the chief executive 
must frequently steer a tortuous, sometimes dangerous, course. 
Whatever his shortcomings as a governor may be now or here- 
after his reputation as a man is safe for all time. Nobody 
has ever disputed the statement that Warner's personal popu- 
larity and integrity meant much for the republican cause in 
the strenuous state campaign of 1904. He is a large man of 
good height and comfortable girth. He looks you straight in 
the eye when he answers or asks a question, with no furtive 
glance at your feet or the middle button of your vest. His 
white teeth gleam from beneath a heavy mustache as he smiles 
or speaks; and he never misses an opportunit}^ of letting his 
smile break into a wholesome laugh. His thick greyish hair 
and his ruddy cheek and keen, blue eye mark the man's prime. 
His linen is always spotless, his clothes well made, his neck- 
wear generously and decorously colored. He shakes hands as 
if he meant it and treats as gentlemen all who approach him. 
Fred M. Warner was born in '65, and brought to America from 
Nottinghamshire, England, when an infant by his parents. 
On his mother's death he was adopted by Hon. P. D. Warner 
of Farmington. He was given a substantial education and 
became a clerk in his father's store, subsequently being placed 
in charge of the business. He soon developed the cheese habit 
and now operates eight factories with an annual output of 
1,000,000 pounds. His one hobby is the development of the 
dairy interests of Michigan. 

Besides holding local offices he has been a senator for two 
terms and secretary of state for two, — the youngest secretary 
of state as he is now the youngest governor of the constitutional 
era. Gov. Warner does not pose as a genius. He has shown 
a disposition to give his people the best that is in him. No 
man can do more. 

120 




ARTHUR J, WATERS 

(representative.) 

"Waters got in wrong." That was 
the way his colleagues put it. And the 
expression when analyzed meant just 
this: — Here is a man who has more 
brains than we have. He knows it and 
we know it. He is a red hot reformer 
with varieties. He is very aggressive. 
He makes too much of his personal 
influence. Let us have some fun with 
him. And furthermore, when we all 
get fighting among ourselves and want 
to get together we will find Watcrs's 
neck a happy stamping ground. 

But Waters would not tame. He 
took the prods and roasts and bitter- 
ness of men who professed they did not 

like him personally, and smiled in return. Feigned indifference 
or invulnerability preserved unruffled his demeanor, until for 
very weariness of attack his tormentors sat back and listened. 
They heard frequently some voluble phrases of imagery, seme 
fly blown conjury of battle fields and flags. But they also heard 
sense and sound argument and powerful presentation of the 
case. The speech delivered by the gentleman from Washtenaw 
on the necessity of immediatelv reforming the state tax ccm- 
mission, was voted by his enemies in spite of themselves, one 
of the best orations of the whole session from nearly every point 
of criticism. Being a fellow townsman of Amariah the speaker 
seemed to be fired with special inspiration. Furthermore, 
Waters is a lawyer of no slight proportions. 

Waters won't be "in wrong" in 1907. His ability has been 
recognized. If the indefinable atmosphere that gives im- 
pressions gives them truly in this case, the representatives 
have gone home feeling a little ashamed of the life they gave 
Waters for most of the session and prepared to heed him more 
if the}^ come back. Waters has asked for nothing but a square 
deal. In many cases his vigorous methods did not assure him 
of anything but an affront. Yet he had faith in his own ideas 
and insisted on their consideration. The rejjly that was given 
him in reverses did not come as a rule through the medium of 
calm, well conducted, open debate, but from the bullying that 
strikes a blow where speech is lacking. 

Moral courage is one of the great things in human nature. 
Waters has asserted his superiority. 



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121 




J, CLYDE WATT 

(represent ATI VE.) 

March i, 1905, the gentleman from 
Ionia married, — no matter whom, for 
her only name now is Watt. Next day 
the bride and groom called on the legis- 
lature. They were received in front 
of the speaker's desk, taken in, so to 
speak. "Uncle William" McKay and 
"Old Man" Holmes uncorked some 
sentiments half a century old, and said 
a lot of things for which they would 
have been soundly spanked in those 
days. The bride blushed, the groom 
smiled very gently that the bride might 
not see him, and then somebody handed 
the embarassed and happy couple a 
glittering bundle of costly emblems of 
good will from the boys. 

Tears started to the eyes of the groom, which showed that 
he had a heart and that it was working. Some of us have hearts ; 
some of us have cardiac machinery. Manly emotion and senti- 
ment got in its work on Watt when he wasn't looking and the 
whole inner man stood forth for one brief moment for us all 
to see. Representatives who had scarcely known Watt until 
then began to speak of him as Clyde. They were all his friends. 
"All the world loves a lover." 

Just to show that Watt cuts some pumpkins in his own land, 
it is fitting to mention that he has been president and secretary 
of the Gridley Club of Ionia county for two years. Ever attend 
a Gridley Club banquet? No? Take in the next one. You'll 
hear more republicanism in ten minutes than you will at a 
Grand Army reunion. And somebody will tell you a good 
story. And if you know enough to laugh at the right time, 
he'll show you where they keep "it." But don't get "soused," 
"plastered" or "wall-eyed." Placidity at any banquet is all 
that is necessary even in Ionia. 

But speaking of Watt, — he is not quite 30 3''ears old yet and 
he has been up against all that already. Besides he has been 
circuit court commissioner of Ionia for two terms and secretary 
of the republican county committee. He is a graduate of Ann 
Arbor of '96 in law, succeeded in having one arm blown oflf 
while hunting two vears before that, — which has its advantages 
with the reigning laundry prices, — and is handling a prosperous 
practice in his native village of Saranac. 




122 




NICHOLAS J. WHELAN 

(represextative.) 

This Irishman defeated a man named 
Van Den Berg in a town named Holland 
by just about three votes to one. Keep 
your orbs on this panorama for a 
minute, — saw mill, timber boom, rail- 
road tracks, basket factory, school 
teacher, justice of the peace, life saving 
crew, hotel manager, practice of law, 
newspaper, law maker. When you get 
your breath and rub your eyes you will 
remember that "Nick" figured in every 
picture as it flashed past. The scribe 
had almost forgotten to state that he 
was married over a year ago and that 
he has covered the entire distance since 
1869. 

Two years ago "Nick" was an ardent direct nominations 
man. This session he worked like a hired man to keep the 
house closely in line with the platform of 1904. The story was 
at once circulated that Chairman Diekema of the state central 
committee, himself a Hollander, was backing "Nick" for the 
senate. "Nick" says he was simply standing by the party 
platform just as he was in 1903, and that the party cannot 
make platforms too fast to lose him. The senate story did not 
gain much credence for the reason that "Nick" does not strike 
the boys as the kind of chap who would like to climb that sort 
of a ladder. It was Whelan's Irish tongue that brought the 
two factions of the house together after the grand cataclysm 
in which he went down to defeat and which he afterward de- 
scribed in the Donnybrook style of "a beautiful fight." 

The blarney stone is not indigenous to the Dutch district 
where he has lived, but "Nick's" ancestors must have lived 
very close to it. It was in his persuasive, coaxing tone, when 
he pleaded for the passage of a bill ; it was in his voice and eye 
when he referred to the little cottager with his ambitious garden 
and plot of ground and asked for the exemption of mortgages 
from taxation; it was in his manner when he lobbyed before 
and after hours to "line up" the boys on any proposition. 

Whelan was the natural selection for speaker pro tem when 
the leaders were in doubt as to what to do early in the session. 
He took home a cut glass punch bowl to show his wife the bovs 
were satisfied. He will be the natural selection for something 
else before he is verv old. 



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123 




W, H, WHITBECK 

(SERGEANT-AT-ARMS OF THE HOUSE.) 

For two sessions now several curious 
persons have been yearning for a riot in 
the house of representatives or a dis- 
order of some kind that would give Ser- 
geant Whitbeck an opportunitv to show 
his form. He certainly looks the big 
policeman from his leisurely gait to his 
portly front and his quid. To be sure 
he is a trifle obese, but he has a good 
grip and biceps, and he ought to have a 
chance to demonstrate. His muscular 
duties have been limited to seizing a re- 
fractory messenger by the neck or 
meekly parading an "absentee without 
leave" before the speaker. 

This latter act he performs with be- 
coming modesty, but with an expression of sympathy and shame 
for the culprit that really detracts from his dignity and the aus- 
terity of the occasion. His expression plainlv savs to the man 
with the gavel: "Please, sir, be easy on him now. He didn't 
mean to do it. I know he didnt'. Besides, I wouldn't mind if 
I thought the gentlemen were taking it all seriously, but they're 
joshing us both, and I'm afraid they're joshing me as much as 
they are him — perhaps more." 

Then the sergeant returns to his post at the bar, feeling very 
glad it's all over and hoping he won't have to go on parade again 
very soon. If he were ordered to wear a uniform he'ld faint every 
time he started for the main aisle. He is altogether too good 
natured and too retiring to enjoy a serious situation or an exhi- 
bition of himself. 

Over in Fennville, Whitbeck's home, the sergeant is known as 
a fruit-dealer. When he is not sitting on a stool at the bar of 
the house counting the golden piastres as they waltz upstairs to 
him from the state treasury, he is on the hike to New Orleans 
and back making a snug rake-ofif every time he turns a deal and 
wadding his pocket as he marches north. He likes the southern 
people as most everybody from the north does, and dislikes 
their climate and way of life as most every robust northerner 
does. He likes his northern home so much better that he pre- 
fers a state job at the capitol for a change. And then, confi- 
dentiallv, it is so easv! 




124 




JASON WOODMAN 

(senator.) 

If you want to talk and don't know 
what to talk about go to Woodman. 
He'll talk until you will begin to think 
he was born talking and will be found 
talking when his last day conies, con- 
scious or unconscious. The salvation 
of it all is that he generally says some- 
thing. Whether the state grange is to 
blame for the condition of his submax- 
illary or whether he is to blame for the 
grange is a debatable question. He 
talked for the state grange as a lecturer 
for eight years. If he had not been in 
part to blame for the grange it is doubt- 
ful whether his services would have been 
retained. It may have been cause or 
effect in either premise. 

Let us have something about Woodman and primary elections, 
— for he talked and worried more on that issue than on any other. 
He didn't believe in the direct nomination system any more 
than he did in 1903. He wanted only a moderate measure 
of primary reform. But he voted for the direct nomination of 
governor to help Gov. Warner swing his compromise bill, and 
for the direct nomination of lieutenant governor for the same 
purpose, and also as a protest against the make-up of senate 
committees for the past few sessions. "Personally, I don't 
care much about it one way or the other" quoth Woodman "but 
a lot of us are getting tired of having all the important committees 
controlled by a few men and the work delayed when half of us 
have our hands empty. We could stand some changes, for 
instance, in our railroad committee." 

Woodman is a little man with red whiskers, a fiery tongue 
that rattles along like a mill race during a debate, a great desire 
for good company and good smokes, and a deep pride in old 
Van Buren county and his New England ancestors. He is 
a graduate of the Michigan Agricultural College of 1881 and an 
old college mate of "Link" Avery of Port Huron. Woodman 
says "Link" was a bright boy even in those days. Woodman 
does not follow the bent of his old pal in managing politics, 
mainly because there are no two opinions about republicanism 
in Van Buren countv. According to Woodman they vote 
THE TICKET in Van Buren and offer incense to the party 
platform whatever that may be. Their differences they fight 
out among themselves without loss of time. They all abhor 
democrats. 

Woodman has served his second term and will now drop back 
into private citizenship while a new man will come on to learn 
what he has now learned. Poor business! 




FRED J. ADAMS 

(CORRESPOXDEXT.) 

As the dean of the press corps and the 
captain of the convivials Fred Adams 
must be reckoned as a fraction of the 
state government of 1905. The accom- 
panying cut shows his normal expres- 
sion of countenance except when he is 
grinding out dispatches for the Grand 
Rapids Press, or springing a particu- 
larly good joke. Then he is as solemn 
as an owl. 

His methods are unique ; his humor of 
the practical kind that gets results. Pre- 
siding as roastmaster at the numerous 
little midnight dinners down town, given 
only to the elect, he was worth all the 
end men of a minstrel show and good 
for an all night performance. On one occasion he called on a 
stranger, a friend of a senator present, for a song or dance. 
The stranger was very timid. The senator introduced him 

as "Colonel ." The stranger was not accustomed to 

such performances and began to stammer a few words of greet- 
ing. "I'm really not a colonel," he began with a sickly 
smile. "Well, that will be enough for you. Sit down. We 
don't want any imitations worked off here." The stranger 
retired in confusion and finally joined in the roars of laughter 
that followed. 

One night an aged legislator was roused out of his sleep by 
the arrival of a couple of frisky senators simultaneously with a 
trunk that the porter said had arrived for him. The trunk was 
rolled into the room and the conversation presently turned on 
the hubbub that had been going on in the corridors for several 
hours. The man sitting on the side of the bed in a night shirt 
unloaded a few thinks about the devilment of "that man Ad- 
ams." About then the lid of the trunk slowly arose, and the 
nervous old host saw the head of his subject emerging from 
beneath the lid and asking him to "have something." 

Space prevents the rehearsal of more of the exploits of the fun 
maker. But there was the joke that failed and that threatened to 
startle the legislature and the state. Adams had planned that 
the day of President Roosevelt's arrival in Chicago telegrams 
should arrive for the speaker, the president pro tem, and the 
governor, apprising them of the president's intention to go east 
by way of Lansing on account of a change in the president's 
plans, Committees were to be appointed to meet the presi- 
dent's train and an adjournment taken to receive him on his 
way through. One little hitch spoiled the show after the pro- 
gram was all in working order. That was the one joke that 
failed. For the others that made good apply to Charlie Downey, 
Lansing, Mich. 

126 



THE FALL OF THE GAyEL 



We have met: and we have parted. 

Shall we meet again? Who knows? 
If we meet there will he langhter: 

If we dont meet,— well, " Here goes! " 

You the statesmen; we, reporters; 

But in both are hearts of men, 
Warming only pleasant memories 

Of the friendship that was t/jen. 

Soon we statesmen and reporters 

Will have passed the darkened portal. 

But tJje spirit of our friendship 
Can not pass,— it is immortal. 

—H. M. N. 



DEC 3 1906 



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